GEORGE   SAND    AND    HER   LOVERS 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE   EARLY   MOUNTAINEERS. 

LAKE    GENEVA    AND    ITS    LITERARY 
LANDMARKS. 

MADAME  DE  STAfiL  AND  HER  LOVERS. 


fit 


\ 


,••• 


GEORGE    SANBMA 
AND   HER   LOVERS 


BY 

FRANCIS    GRIBBLE 

AUTHOR  OF   "  MADAME  DE  STAEL  AND  HER  LOVERS  ' 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1907 


PREFACE 


FRENCH  literary  lives  as  a  rule  are  interesting ; 
English  literary  lives  as  a  rule  are  not. 

The  rule,  no  doubt,  has  its  exceptions.  The 
life  of  Byron  is  more  interesting  than  that  of 
Alexis  de  Tocqueville  ;  the  life  of  Shelley  is  more 
interesting  than  that  of  Taine.  It  might  be 
possible  to  compile  a  long  list  of  exceptions  by 
citing  such  extreme  instances  as  these.  But 
the  rule  would  still  remain,  and  one  is  tempted 
to  seek  a  reason  for  it. 

Probably  the  explanation  should  be  sought, 
and  would  be  found,  in  the  difference  between 
the  attitudes  which  representative  men  and 
women  of  the  two  races  respectively  adopt 
towards  their  own  personalities.  In  England 
the  tone  which  prevails  in  these  matters  is 
that  set  at  the  public  schools  and  universities. 
Its  characteristics  are  reticence,  self-control, 
shame -facedness  in  the  presence  of  strong 
emotions,  and  a  high  regard  for  the  conventional 
ideals.  The  public  schoolman  seldom  aspires  to 
be  different  from  other  public  schoolmen.  His 
ambition,  when  he  is  ambitious,  is  to  be  like 
them,  but  more  brilliant — to  succeed  on  approved 


839703 


Preface 

lines,  and  conform  to  a  recognised  type.  The 
man  who  diverges,  however  brilliantly,  from  the 
type,  is  not  only  mistrusted  by  his  neighbours, 
but  is  apt  to  mistrust  himself. 

To  this  rule  too,  of  course,  there  are  excep- 
tions. One  finds  them  chiefly  among  aristocrats 
and  among  Jews.  Byron  and  Disraeli  are  the 
two  most  obvious  examples ;  and  their  cases  are 
hardly  to  be  paralleled  among  members  of  the 
English  middle  classes.  These  are  almost 
invariably  governed  by  the  public  school  ideal 
of  "form,"  whether  they  have  actually  been  at 
public  schools  or  not.  Women,  in  their  sHghtly 
different  way,  are  no  less  under  the  influence  of 
that  ideal  than  men.  The  result  is  that  both 
men  and  women  are  ashamed,  except  within 
very  narrow  limits,  to  be  eccentric.  Their 
eccentricity,  when  they  are  eccentric,  seldom 
gets  beyond  the  buffoonery  of  an  outlandish  garb. 
To  that  extent  a  man  of  marked  individuality 
may  sometimes  make  his  life  a  spectacular 
display.  But  there  is  no  real  cult  of  the  ego 
among  us — no  tendency  to  treat  the  private  life 
as  if  it  were  a  public  matter. 

Hence  the  attitude  of  Englishmen  and 
Englishwomen — especially  of  Englishwomen— 
towards  their  love  affairs.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  (though  no  statistics  are  available)  that, 
so  far  as  actual  conduct  goes,  we  are  much  more 
austere  than  our  neighbours.  Where  we  differ 
from  our  neighbours  is  in  our  uncompromising 

vi 


Preface 

refusal  to  regard  love  seriously  where  the  rela- 
tions of  the  lovers  are  "  irregular."  That  is  to 
say,  what  the  Frenchman  regards  as  a  romance 
is  regarded  by  the  Englishman  as  intrigue.  It  is 
so  regarded,  not  only  by  the  lookers-on,  who  see 
most  of  the  game,  but  also  by  the  principals. 
And  there  results  from  this  not  only  the 
reticence  which  good  manners  exact,  but  also 
a  special  kind  of  hypocrisy  which  the  whole 
Continent  declares,  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be 
peculiar  to  the  British  Isles. 

The  whole  Continent,  rightly  or  wrongly,  sees 
a  crowning  example  of  that  hypocrisy  in  the 
career  of  George  Eliot.  It  is  not  the  ethical 
aspect  of  her  relations  with  George  Henry 
Lewes,  so  often,  and  so  acrimoniously,  debated 
on  this  side  of  the  Channel,  that  perturbs  the 
foreign  mind.  Foreign  critics  are  quite  willing 
to  apply  to  her  case  the  famous  saying  of  the 
tolerant  monk  of  old  :  Boniface  did  it,  and  not  we  ; 
Boniface  and  not  we  will  suffer  for  it ;  peace 
be  with  Boniface!  What  is  incomprehensible 
to  them  is  her  yearning  for  the  reputation  of 
"  respectability,"  and  her  calm  assurance  that  she 
could  achieve  it  by  assuming  the  name  to  which 
another  woman  was  legally  entitled.  For  she  was 
not  Mrs.  Lewes ;  and  everybody  knew  that  she 
was  not  Mrs.  Lewes ;  and  yet  all  her  friends  and 
acquaintances — both  those  who  knew  her  well  and 
those  who  knew  her  slightly — agreed  to  pretend 
that  she  was,  and  would  assuredly  have  refused 

vii 


Preface 

to  visit  her  if,  while  living  with  Lewes,  she  had 
continued  to  call  herself  Mary  Anne  Evans.  No 
wonder  the  foreign  critics  are  puzzled,  and  see 
in  the  spectacle,  not  vice  paying  decent  and 
decorous  homage  to  virtue,  but  an  individuality 
capable  of  better  things  grovelling  at  the  feet  of 
bourgeois  conventions. 

By  such  deceptions  which  deceive  nobody,  a 
Frenchman  would  say,  romance  is  degraded  to 
the  level  of  intrigue ;  and  he  would  add,  to  point 
the  contrast,  that  the  aim  of  his  own  countrymen 
and  countrywomen  is  to  raise  intrigue  to  the 
dignity  of  romance.  Certainly  he  might  cite 
many  instances  in  support  of  the  latter  proposi- 
tion both  among  the  romances  which  have  ended 
happily  and  among  those  through  which  hearts 
have  been  broken.  There  is  the  case  of 
Victor  Hugo's  exaltation  of  Juliette  Drouet — not 
only  his  mistress  but  his  Muse ;  there  is  the 
case  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  writing  his  Coleres  de 
Samson  because  his  Delilah  had  behaved  after 
the  fashion  of  her  kind  ;  there  is  the  case  of 
Chateaubriand  celebrating  his  passion  for  Pauline 
de  Beaumont,  with  whom  he  lived  while  writing 
Le  Gtnie  du  Christianisme.  But  the  case  of 
George  Sand  furnishes  the  best  instance  of  all. 

Living  in  an  extravagant  age,  she  gloried  in 
her  own  contributions  to  its  extravagance.  She 
not  only  "  lived  her  own  life,"  but  boldly  asserted 
her  right  to  do  so.  Her  feeling  apparently  was 
that,  when  she  loved,  she  was  making  history ; 

viii 


Preface 

and  she  took  pains  that  the  future  historian 
should  not  find  the  records  incomplete.  Not 
only  did  she  most  carefully  preserve  such  records 
of  her  amours  as  her  own  and  Alfred  de  Musset's 
letters,  and  leave  directions  that  they  should  be 
published  after  her  death :  she  also  chronicled 
them  from  day  to  day — almost  from  hour  to 
hour — in  her  letters  to  various  friends :  she  told 
the  story  of  her  intimacy  with  Sandeau  in  letters 
to  her  son's  tutor,  Boucoiran ;  she  took  Sainte- 
Beuve  into  her  confidence  about  her  intimacies 
with  Musset  and  Merime'e  ;  she  told  her  friend 
Girerd  all  about  her  intimacy  with  Michel  de 
Bourges. 

The  material,  therefore,  for  writing  her  life  is 
ample,  and  the  biographer  who  uses  it  cannot  be 
accused  of  grubbing  up  old  scandals.  There  is 
no  grubbing  to  be  done.  George  Sand  provided 
the  material,  and  meant  it  to  be  used.  She  did 
not  regard  the  incidents  related  in  this  volume 
as  scandalous  either  at  the  time  or  afterwards. 
If  she  had  done  so,  she  would  not  have  written 
Elle  et  Lui  when  she  was  fifty-five.  Her 
view  in  later  life  evidently  was  that  her  love 
affairs,  no  less  than  her  early  books,  were  a  part 
of  the  Romantic  Movement.  To  the  historian, 
indeed,  they  are  a  very  instructive  part  of  it.  One 
really  needs  to  have  the  life  of  George  Sand 
before  one  in  order  to  understand  how  much  more 
the  Romantic  Movement  was  than  a  revolt  against 
the  classical  traditions  of  literature  and  the  stage. 

ix 


Preface 

The  strange  thing  is  that,  in  spite  of  the  abund- 
ance of  the  material,  no  full  and  adequate  life 
of  George  Sand  exists.  There  is  plenty  of 
literature  bearing  on  the  Musset  episode, — 
M.  Paul  Marieton's  Une  Histoire  d  Amour,  and 
M.  Maurras'  Les  Amants  de  Venise,  for  instance, 
— but  most  of  the  biographers  have  confined 
themselves  to  that  one  branch  of  the  subject. 
Madame  Karenine  began  a  very  elaborate 
biography,  but  the  two  volumes  published 
carry  us  no  farther  than  the  year  1838.  The 
little  book  contributed  by  Caro  to  Hachette's 
Les  grands  Ecrivains  franfais  is  more  critical 
than  biographical.  M.  Le  Roy's  George  Sand 
et  ses  Amis  gives  rather  more  information,  but 
needs  to  be  supplemented  in  some  particulars, 
especially  when  dealing  with  the  events  of  George 
Sand's  later  years. 

In  English  there  is  only  the  monograph  written 
for  the  Eminent  Women  Series  by  Miss  Bertha 
Thomas  —  a  work  which  Madame  Karenine 
declares  to  be  pervaded  by  "British  prudery." 
Miss  Thomas  evidently  wrote  for  a  very  special 
public — not  so  large  nowadays  as  it  used  to  be— 
which  esteems  prudery  a  higher  virtue  than 
candour,  only  interests  itself  in  "nice"  people, 
and  discovers  some  mysterious  advantage  in 
ignoring  conduct  of  which  it  disapproves.  If 
her  pages  were  our  sole  authority,  we  should 
have  to  suppose  that  Jules  Sandeau  was  only 
George  Sand's  collaborator,  that  Dr.  Pagello  was 


Preface 

only  her  medical  attendant,  and  that  Michel  de 
Bourges  was  only  her  legal  adviser.  The  picture 
is  of  a  woman  who,  in  spite  of  her  accidental 
association  with  the  Romanticists,  was  really  a 
British  Matron  at  heart.  One  admires  the  in- 
genuity of  the  conception,  but  still — magis  arnica 
veritas.  At  all  events,  there  seems  to  be  no  good 
reason  why  the  biographer  who  is  not  addressing 
Miss  Thomas'  special  public  should  be  any  less 
candid  than  George  Sand  was  herself,  or  should 
refrain  from  making  full  use  of  the  records  which 
George  Sand  deliberately  and  carefully  provided 
and  preserved. 

Her  own  letters,1  and  those  of  her  friends  and 
lovers,  are  the  principal  sources  of  information  on 
which  this  book  is  based.  More  specific  ac- 
knowledgments of  obligations  will  be  found  in 
their  proper  places  in  the  text.  It  may  be 
mentioned  here  that  the  present  biographer  is 
able  to  quote  some  letters  of  Chopin  to  which 
previous  biographers,  whether  of  Chopin  or  of 
George  Sand,  had  not  access ;  but  that  story  too 
is  told  in  the  course  of  the  work. 

FRANCIS  GRIBBLE. 


1  Only  a  portion — and  not  the  most  interesting  portion — of 
George  Sand's  letters  is  contained  in  the  six  volumes  of  the 
Correspondence.  The  rest  are  scattered  in  the  columns  of  various 
newspapers  and  magazines.  A  bibliography  of  them  is  given  in 
Madame  Karenine's  Life. 


XI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

Ancestors — Frederick  Augustus  n. — Maurice  de  Saxe — Marie 
Rinteau,  afterwards  de  Verrieres — Aurore  de  Saxe — Her 
marriage  with  M.  Dupin  de  Francueil — Her  life  at 
Nohant — Her  son,  Maurice  Dupin — His  marriage  with 
Sophie  Delaborde — Birth  of  George  Sand  .  .  I 

CHAPTER  II 

Madame  Dupin's  inquiries  about  the  past  of  Sophie  Dela- 
borde—  Her  reconciliation  with  her  son  —  Death  of 
Maurice  Dupin — Education  of  George  Sand — Her  life 
at  the  convent  —  And  at  Nohant  —  She  consults  her 
confessor  about  her  philosophic  studies  —  She  smokes 
and  rides  astride  .....  o 


CHAPTER  III 

Death  of  Madame  Dupin  —  Marriage  of  George  Sand 
to  Casimir  Dudevant  —  Her  Platonic  friendship  with 
Aurelien  de  Seze — How  and  why  that  friendship  came 
to  an  end  —  Strained  relations  with  her  husband  —  His 
potations  and  infidelities — George  Sand  "takes  a  violent  19 
decision"  ....... 

CHAPTER  IV 

George  Sand's  acquaintance  with  Jules  Sandeau — She  goes 
to  Paris  and  lives  with  him  "in  an  unconventional 
manner" — Her  literary  beginnings— Her  delight  in  her 
emancipation — Her  happiness  .  .  .  30 

xiii 


Contents 


CHAPTER  V 

PAGE 

Literary  success— A  retainer  from  Buloz  —  Passionate  rela- 
tions with  Jules  Sandeau  —  His  infidelity  detected  — 
The  lovers  part — George  Sand's  retrospective  references 
to  the  amour  .  .  .  .  .  41 

CHAPTER  VI 

Lost  illusions — Friendship  with  Marie  Dorval — Sainte-Beuve 
introduces  Prosper  Merimee  —  George  Sand  becomes 
his  mistress  for  a  week — Their  parting  and  subsequent 
meeting  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  52 

CHAPTER  VII 

Alfred  de  Musset — His  family  and  early  associations — His 
relations  with  the  "Cenacle" — Sainte-Beuve  introduces 
him  to  George  Sand  —  The  exchange  of  compliments 
leads  to  love — Bohemian  life  together  in  George  Sand's 
apartment — A  honeymoon  in  the  Forest  of  Fontaine- 
bleau —  The  proposal  to  travel  together  to  Venice  — 
Musset's  mother  objects  —  George  Sand  calls  on  her 
and  persuades  her  to  consent — The  departure  "amid 
circumstances  of  evil  omen  "  .  .  .  .58 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Meeting  with  Stendhal  at  Lyons — Arrival  at  Venice — 
George  Sand  works  while  Musset  sits  in  cafes — Dr. 
Pagello  sees  George  Sand  on  the  balcony  and  admires 
her  —  She  calls  him  in  to  prescribe  for  a  headache — 
Shortly  afterwards  she  summons  him  again  to  prescribe 
for  Musset— His  diagnosis  .  .  .  .72 

CHAPTER  IX 

The  nature  of  Musset's  illness — 1*he  reasons  for  supposing  it 
to  have  been  typhoid  fever — The  behaviour  of  George 
Sand  and  Pagello  at  his  bedside  —  George  Sand's 
declaration  of  love — Pagello's  doubts  and  hesitations — 
It  is  agreed  between  them  that  Musset  shall  return  alone  84 
xiv 


Contents 


CHAPTER  X 

PAGE 

How  Alfred  de  Musset  was  told — His  own  version  of  the 
story — The  improbabilities  in  it  —  Pagello's  version  — 
Musset's  departure — His  farewell  letters  .  .  -95 


CHAPTER  XI 

The  three-cornered  love  duel  —  George  Sand's  letters  to 
Musset  describing  her  relations  with  Pagello — Pagello's 
letter  to  Musset  —  Storms  in  the  "faux  menage"  — 
Remonstrances  of  Pagello's  cast-off  mistresses — And  of 
his  father  —  George  Sand  and  Pagello  attend  public 
worship  and  pray  together — George  Sand  decides  that 
Pagello  shall  take  her  to  Paris  .  .  .  .106 


CHAPTER  XII 

Pagello  in  Paris — He  begins  to  feel  that  he  has  acted  fool- 
ishly— He  consoles  himself  with  the  contemplation  of 
his  mother's  portrait  and  the  recollection  of  her  moral 
precepts — He  walks  the  hospitals  —  George  Sand  sees 
Musset  again — She  complains  to  him  that  Pagello  is 
jealous — Pagello  returns  to  Venice  .  .  .120 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Further  correspondence  between  George  Sand  and  Musset — 
He  is  ill  and  asks  her  to  visit  him — She  wishes  to  renew 
the  old  relations,  but  finds  him  unwilling — Sainte-Beuve 
intercedes  for  her  in  vain — She  cuts  off  her  hair  and 
sends  it  to  Musset — She  also  sends  him  her  private 
diary — The  renewal  of  love  .  .  .  .132 


CHAPTER  XIV 

George  Sand  and  Musset  find  life  together  impossible — They 
agree  to  part,  and  George  Sand  retires  to  Nohant — The 
fate  of  their  letters  .  .  .  .  .  .     143 

xv 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XV 

PAGE 

George  Sand's  influence  on  Alfred  de  Musset— His  moral 
decline  and  fall — George  Sand's  distress  —  The  secret 
of  her  strength — She  appeals  to  Sainte-Beuve  to  pray 
for  her  152 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Michel  de  Bourges — He  acts  as  George  Sand's  advocate  in 
a  demand  for  judicial  separation  from  her  husband — 
The  hearing  of  the  suit — Speeches  of  counsel — Disagree- 
ment of  the  Tribunal — The  matter  settled  out  of  court — 
The  rights  and  wrongs  considered  .  .  .163 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Michel  indoctrinates  George  Sand  —  His  revolutionary 
harangue  on  the  Pont  des  Saints-Peres — She  becomes 
a  Republican  under  his  influence,  and  preaches  his 
Gospel  in  her  letters  to  her  boy  at  school — She  becomes 
his  mistress — Relations  become  strained  and  they  part  .  1 80 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Maurice  Sand  at  the  Tuileries — George  Sand's  relations  with 
Lamennais — The  Saint-Simonians — Their  proposal  that 
George  Sand  should  become  their  high-priestess — Their 
gifts  to  her — Her  reasons  for  rejecting  their  overtures  .  196 


CHAPTER  XIX 

George  Sand  and  Liszt  —  Liszt's  elopement  with  Madame 
d'Agoult  —  Friendship   of    George   Sand  for    Madame 
d'Agoult — She  visits   Madame   d'Agoult  and   Liszt    at 
Geneva  —  They  visit  her  at  Nohant  —  Relations  begin 
to  be  strained  —  Practical  jokes  at  Nohant  —  Eugene 
Pelletan's    experiences    as    tutor    to    George    Sand's 
children        .......     207 

xvi 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XX 

PAGE 

Death  of  George  Sand's  mother — Solange  kidnapped  by 
M.  Dudevant  —  Pursuit  and  Recapture  —  Letters  to 
Girerd  on  the  waning  of  the  love  of  Michel  —  George 
Sand  consoles  herself  for  the  loss  of  Michel's  love  by 
becoming  the  mistress  of  Felicien  Mallefille — She  and 
Madame  d'Agoult  quarrel  about  Mallefille — Mallefille 
supplanted  by  Pierre  Leroux  ....  220 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Balzac's  visit  to  Nohant  —  His  estimate  of  George  Sand's 
character — Pierre  Leroux  dismissed  to  the  empyrean — 
The  origin  of  the  amour  with  Chopin  .  .  .231 

CHAPTER  XXII 

Chopin's  early  struggles — His  sudden  success — His  proposal 
of  marriage  to  Marie  Wodzinska  —  The  meeting  with 
George  Sand  and  the  decision  to  travel  together  to 
Majorca  .......  240 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

Life  in  Majorca  —  The  travellers  find  an  apartment  in  a 
Carthusian  convent  in  the  mountains — Discomfort  and 
demoralisation  —  Departure — Chopin  invites  himself  to 
Nohant  —  George  Sand  hesitates,  but  decides  that  he 
may  come  .......  249 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

The  destruction  of  George  Sand's  letters  to  Chopin  —  The 
recovery  of  Chopin's  letters  to  his  family  — "  Vie 
nzflg-/*"— The  life  at  Nohant— The  verdict  of  Mile  de 
Rozieres  :  "  Love  is  no  longer  there "  .  .  .261 


CHAPTER  XXV 

Reasons  for  not  trusting  George  Sand's  account  of  the  liaison 
with  Chopin — Liszt's  summary  of  the  situation — Lucrezia 
b  xvii 


Contents 


Floriani — Was  "Prince  Karol"  meant  for  Chopin?  — 
Extracts  from  Chopin's  and  George  Sand's  letters  to 
Chopin's  sister  ......  272 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

Solange  Sand  at  school — Her  religious  instruction — She  jilts 
Fernand  de  Preaulx  and  marries  Cle'singer —  Quarrel 
between  Solange  and  her  mother  —  Quarrels  between 
Chopin  and  George  Sand  because  he  takes  the  part  of 
Solange  —  Separation  of  Chopin  and  George  Sand  — 
Chopin's  correspondence  with  Solange — The  references 
to  the  rupture  in  his  letters  to  his  sister  .  .  .  286 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

Chopin's  concert  tour  in  England — His  return  to  Paris — 
His  last  illness — George  Sand  refused  admission  to  his 
apartment — His  death  .....  300 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

The  importance  of  George  Sand's  novels — Her  relation  to 

the  Romantic  Movement    .....    308 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

End  of  George  Sand's  sentimental  life— Manceau  "  the  last 
link  in  the  chain  " — The  affairs  of  Solange — Her  quarrels 
with  her  husband — Her  separation  from  him — Solange 
in  Paris — Her  correspondence  with  George  Sand  .  322 

CHAPTER  XXX 

George  Sand  grows  old  with  dignity— Her  heart  a  ceme- 
tery— The  account  which  she  gave  of  herself  to  Louis 
d'Ulbach  —  And  to  Flaubert  —  A  conversation  at  the 
Magny  dinner  —  Elle  et  Lui — Correspondence  with 
Buloz — His  advice  to  "tone  down"  that  work — Lui  et 
Elle—  George  Sand's  rejoinder— She  thinks  of  publishing 
Musset's  letters — Sainte-Beuve's  advice — Decision  that 
they  shall  not  be  published  until  after  her  death  .  .  332 

xviii 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

PAGE 

George  Sand's  friends  and  visitors — The'ophile  Gautier  at 
Nohant— "Ragging"  Flaubert— Stories  told  by  M.  Henri 
Amic  —  Thiers'  attempt  to  kiss  George  Sand  — Jane 
Essler — Sarah  Bernhardt — Why  the  society  of  actresses 
should  be  avoided — M.  Emile  Aucante  on  George  Sand's 
manner  of  life  and  methods  of  work  .  .  .  346 

CHAPTER  XXXII 

Friendship  with  Flaubert— The  correspondence  —  Criticism 
of  books  and  criticism  of  life — George  Sand's  optimism — 
Her  last  illness  and  death  .....  360 


XIX 


GEORGE  SAND  AND 
HER  LOVERS 

CHAPTER   I 

Ancestors — Frederick  Augustus  n. — Maurice  de  Saxe — Marie 
Rinteau,  afterwards  de  Verrieres — Aurore  de  Saxe — Her 
marriage  with  M.  Dupin  de  Francueil — Her  life  at  Nohant 
— Her  son,  Maurice  Dupin — His  marriage  with  Sophie 
Delaborde — Birth  of  George  Sand. 

AMANDINE  -  AURORE  -  LUCIE  DUPIN,  known  to 
literature  as  "  George  Sand,"  was  the  descendant 
of  kings  and  daughters  of  the  people. 

The  most  distant  ancestor  to  whom  we  need 
trouble  to  trace  her  is  Frederick  Augustus  11., 
Elector  of  Saxony,  who  was  her  great-great- 
grandfather, and  is  described  by  his  great-great- 
granddaughter  as  " the  most  amazing  debauchee" 
of  his  epoch.  His  mistress — or  rather,  one  of  his 
mistresses  —  was  that  successful  and  celebrated 
courtesan,  Aurora  von  Konigsmark.  She  bore 
him  a  child,  Maurice  de  Saxe,  the  marshal  who 
won  the  battle  of  Fontenoy. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  Maurice  de  Saxe 
would  refrain  from  amours  of  the  kind  to  which 


A     George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

•  ••«         *   •     *  •  o 

he  owed  his  o\vn  agreeable  existence ;  and  he  did 
not.  When  he  engaged  in  a  campaign,  the 
followers  of  his  camp  always  included  a  company 
of  comedians  who  served  a  double  purpose, 
diverting  the  soldiers  by  their  performances,  and 
providing  the  commander-in-chief  with  congenial 
feminine  society.  Sometimes,  in  a  chivalrous 
spirit  worthy  of  the  warriors  who  exclaimed,  "  Tirez 
les  premiers,"  he  lent  his  actors — and  even  his 
actresses — to  the  enemy,  retaining  only  his  own 
especial  favourite  to  share  his  tent. 

Among  the  ladies  engaged  in  one  of  the  com- 
panies were  Mesdemoiselles  Marie  and  Genevieve 
Rinteau.  D'Argenson  bluntly  applies  to  their 
father  a  slang  term — the  name  of  a  fish — which 
indicates  that  he  lived  on  the  immoral  earnings  of 
his  daughters.  It  is  at  any  rate  true  that  he 
expected  them  to  push  his  fortunes  as  well  as 
their  own  ;  and  he  presently  achieved  the  purpose 
for  which  he  had  sent  them  to  the  travelling 
military  theatre.  Marie  Rinteau  found  favour  in 
the  eyes  of  Maurice  de  Saxe,  and  bore  him  a 
daughter.  Her  father  was  rewarded  with  an 
appointment  as  manager  of  a  military  store.  He 
was  afterwards  ejected  from  the  post  in  conse- 
quence of  a  scandal  in  the  commissariat  department  ; 
but  that  circumstance  is  only  remotely  relevant 
to  the  present  history. 

The  career  of  Marie  Rinteau,  however,  merits 
more  careful  contemplation ;  she  may  be  said 
to  have  anticipated  her  famous  great-grand- 


1 


Marie  de  Verrieres 

daughter  alike  in  her  talents,  in  her  fascinations, 

and  in  the  licence  which  she  allowed  herself  in 

exercising  them.     Soon  after  the  commencement 

of  her   intimacy    with    Maurice   de    Saxe,    being 

brought  to  Paris,  she  changed  her   name   to   de 

Verrieres,  and  sought  and  obtained  permission  to 

join  the  troupe  of  players  attached  to  the  royal 

theatre.     One  of  her  motives  for  doing  so  must 

certainly  be  sought  in  the  fact  that,  at  that  period, 

the     actresses     enrolled     in    the     royal     service 

were   the   only  women  privileged  to   pursue  the 

profession  of  gallantry  unmolested  by  the  police, 

all   the  others  being  liable  to  arbitrary  arrest  at 

any  moment.     But    Marie   de  Verrieres— to  call 

her  by  her  professional  name — differed  from  the 

rest    in    having     genuine     theatrical     ambitions. 

Merely  to  "  walk  on  "  might  suffice  for  them,  but 

not  for  her.     She  aspired  to  leading  roles ;   and 

Marmontel,  the  author  of  Contes  Morales,  obliged 

Maurice  de  Saxe  by  giving  her  lessons  in  elocution. 

The  first  result  of  these  lessons  was  that  the 

pupil  and  the  teacher  fell  in  love  ;  the  second  was 

that  the  protector   cut   off  supplies.     Marmontel 

thereupon   laid  the  whole  of  his   fortune  at   the 

lady's  feet.     She  graciously  accepted  it ;   but,  as 

it  only  consisted  of  forty  louis — £32  of  our  money 

—it  did  not  satisfy  her  needs  ;  and  it  was  shortly 

afterwards  intimated  to  the  young  author  that  he 

must  yield   his   place   to   the    Due   de   Bouillon. 

The  son  whom  Marie  de  Verrieres  bore  to  her 

new  protector  was  taken  away  from    her   to   be 

3 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

brought  up  in  its  father's  house.  The  father's 
affection  for  her  cooled,  and  she  was  left  free 
to  enter  into  other  relations. 

M.  d'Epinay,  the  wealthy  Farmer-General  of 
the  Taxes,  husband  of  the  Madame  d'Epinay  who 
was  the  mistress  of  Grimm,  and  the  friend  of 
Rousseau,  next  came  to  her  rescue,  and,  in  fact, 
supported  the  whole  family — a  second  establish- 
ment including  a  second  mother-in-law — first  in 
the  Chausse'e  d'Antin,  and  afterwards  in  the 
country,  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
house  in  which  Madame  d'Epinay  resided.  He 
even  introduced  his  mistress  and  her  mother  to 
the  cure",  who  received  them  as  persons  of  un- 
impeachable respectability.  Madame  d'Epinay 
naturally  did  not  receive  them  at  all ;  but  indirect 
relations  between  the  two  establishments  were 
none  the  less  instituted.  M.  Dupin  de  Francueil, 
who  had  been  the  lover  of  Madame  d'Epinay 
until  Grimm  supplanted  him,  became  the  lover  of 
Genevieve  de  Verrieres. 

This  episode  was  ended  by  M.  d'Epinay's 
bankruptcy ;  but  the  fortunes  of  his  mistress  were 
not  greatly  affected  by  his  failure.  She  and  her 
sister  gave  theatrical  representations  to  a  large 
and  fashionable  attendance  at  their  home,  and 
she  continued  to  fascinate  men  of  mark.  She 
was  the  mistress  of  the  poet  Colardeau  ;  she  was 
the  mistress  of  La  Harpe ;  and  she  did  not 
survive  her  charms,  but  continued  to  fascinate 
until  the  end.  Her  career  of  gallantry  was  too 

4 


Aurore  de  Saxe 

uniformly  brilliant  to  point  any  useful  moral, 
though  it  is  important  here  as  a  factor  in  the 
heredity  of  George  Sand.  We  will  leave  it,  and 
pass  on  to  consider  the  fortunes  of  her  daughter. 

Aurore  de  Saxe  was  originally  registered  as  the 
daughter  of  a  "petit  bourgeois"  who  was  pre- 
sumably hired,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  age, 
to  give  her  an  "Mat  civil''  Her  father,  however, 
subsequently  acknowledged  her  ;  and  she  was  taken 
away  from  her  mother  and  educated  under  the  super- 
intendence of  the  Dauphine  of  France.  She  was 
placed  at  the  famous  Saint-Cyr  school,  founded 
by  Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  married,  at  the 
age  of  fifteen,  to  the  Comte  de  Horn,  an  illegitimate 
son  of  Louis  xv.  Her  husband  was  chosen  for 
her  without  any  pretence  of  consulting  her  own 
wishes ;  and  she  was  even  warned  by  his  valet, 
on  her  wedding-day,  that  the  marriage  could  only 
be  consummated  at  the  peril  of  her  health.  The 
Comte  de  Horn  at  first  protested  ;  but  a  threat  to 
refer  the  question  to  his  own  medical  attendant 
induced  him  to  acquiesce.  Three  weeks  after- 
wards he  was  killed  in  a  duel,  and  the  child-wife 
was  left  a  widow. 

She  returned  to  her  mother,  but  remained  un- 
spotted by  the  contaminating  world  in  which  her 
mother  lived.  Her  interests  were  artistic  and 
intellectual ;  and  Marie  de  Verrieres  at  least 
conducted  her  amours  in  the  midst  of  intellectual 
society.  Presumably  the  poets  and  philosophers 

5 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

who  found  in  her  their  Aspasia  respected  her 
daughter's  innocence,  even  while  writing  madrigals 
in  her  honour.  At  the  age  of  thirty  she  was 
married  a  second  time — to  the  M.  Dupin  de 
Francueil  already  mentioned.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  she  was  aware  that  he  had  once 
been  the  lover  of  her  aunt. 

M.  Dupin  was  a  man  of  culture,  and,  apparently, 
a  man  of  wealth.  He  was  acquainted  with  all 
the  intellectual  leaders  of  the  age,  and  had  once 
even  employed  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau  as  his 
secretary.  If  his  wife  was  never  passionately  in 
love  with  him,  at  least  he  did  his  best  to  make 
her  happy.  Not  until  after  his  death  did  she 
discover  that  he  had  squandered  the  greater  part 
of  his  fortune  in  doing  so.  On  making  the  dis- 
covery, she  paid  his  debts,  bought  the  Nohant 
estate  in  the  Department  of  Berry,  and  settled 
down  there  in  1795,  to  devote  her  life  to  the 
education  of  her  son  Maurice. 

Maurice  Dupin  became  a  soldier.  At  first  a 
private  in  Massena's  army,  he  received  promotion 
and  became  aide-de-camp  to  Murat ;  but  the  only 
one  of  his  triumphs  which  immediately  concerns 
us  was  not  won  in  the  field  of  Mars.  One  of  his 
generals  in  the  army  of  Italy  was  accompanied  by 
his  mistress — a  grisette  named  Sophie  Delaborde, 
of  whose  past  the  less  said  the  better,  already  the 
mother  of  an  illegitimate  child  called  Caroline. 
Maurice  Dupin  made  -love  to  Sophie.  First  she 
lent  him  the  general's  money.  Then  she 

6 


Maurice  Dupin 

abandoned  the  general,  and  eloped  with  him.  In 
due  course  he  brought  her  to  Nohant,  and 
announced  his  intention  of  marrying  her. 

Naturally,  Madame  Dupin  was  shocked  and 
pained.  She  was  no  Puritan.  She  quite  under- 
stood that  young  men  would  be  young  men  and 
that  young  women  would  be  young  women.  The 
history  of  the  family,  for  several  generations,  had 
proved  that,  if  it  had  proved  nothing  else.  It  did 
not  outrage  her  feelings  to  know  that  her  son, 
though  unmarried,  was  a  father  ;  she  had,  in  fact, 
already  undertaken  the  education  of  his  natural 
son,  Hippolyte  Chitiron.  It  was  little  to  her 
that  he  had  taken  a  new  mistress  who  was  ex- 
pected to  bear  him  a  second  child.  On  matters 
of  this  sort  she  was  entirely  in  her  son's  con- 
fidence, and  very  much  in  sympathy  with  him. 
But  marriage — that  was  another  matter  altogether. 
Her  own  marriage  had  brought  her  social  promo- 
tion. She  was  a  lady,  though  a  poor  lady  ;  her 
son  was  a  gentleman,  though  a  poor  gentle- 
man. A  gentleman  could  not  marry  a  grisette. 
The  proper  example  for  Maurice  Dupin  to 
follow  was  that  of  his  grandfather,  Maurice  de 
Saxe. 

So  Madame  Dupin  set  her  face  against 
the  marriage.  Maurice,  she  said,  must  » lioose 
between  his  mistress  and  his  mother ;  and  it  is 
possible  that  he  would  have  preferred  his  mother 
and  made  terms  with  his  mistress  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  indiscreet  interference  of  his  old  tutor, 

7 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Deschartres,  a  priest  who  had  unfrocked  himself 
at  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 

This  foolish  fellow  took  it  upon  himself  to  call 
upon  Sophie  at  her  inn  and  order  her  to  leave  the 
neighbourhood.  Her  answer  was  to  order  him  to 
leave  the  room,  and  he  did  so  ;  but  he  presently 
returned,  accompanied  by  the  Mayor  and  another 
municipal  officer,  proposing  to  procure  her  expul- 
sion on  the  ground  that  her  papers  were  "  not  in 
order."  To  his  chagrin,  however,  the  magistrates, 
discovering  no  formidable  termagant  but  only  a 
pretty  woman  in  a  flood  of  tears,  took  Sophie's 
part,  and  told  Deschartres  that  he  had  no  right 
to  annoy  her.  The  tutor  withdrew  in  confusion  ; 
and  presently  Maurice  arrived,  and  having  heard 
what  had  happened,  was  deaf  to  further  argument. 
He  married  Sophie  Delaborde  in  June  1804. 

A  month  later,  husband  and  wife  were  present 
at  a  party  given  in  honour  of  the  betrothal  of 
Sophie's  sister,  Lucie,  to  a  French  officer  ;  and 
there  was  fiddling  and  dancing.  Sophie  felt 
suddenly  indisposed,  and  left  the  room.  Lucie 
followed  her ;  but  Maurice  continued  to  dance, 
noticing  and  surmising  nothing.  Presently  he  heard 
his  sister-in-law's  voice  calling,  "Come,  Maurice! 
You  have  a  daughter.  She  has  been  born  in  the 
midst  of  roses  and  music.  She  will  be  happy." 

"  She  shall  be  called  Aurore,  after  my  mother, 
who  will  give  her  her  blessing  some  day,"  ex- 
claimed her  father ;  but  the  world  was  to  know 
her,  not  as  Aurore  Dupin,  but  as  George  Sand. 

8 


CHAPTER   II 

Madame  Dupin's  inquiries  about  the  past  of  Sophie  Delaborde — 
Her  reconciliation  with  her  son — Death  of  Maurice  Dupin 
— Education  of  George  Sand — Her  life  at  the  convent — And 
at  Nohant — She  consults  her  confessor  about  her  philosophic 
studies — She  smokes  and  rides  astride. 

MADAME  DUPIN  the  elder  was  not  informed  of 
her  son's  marriage.  She  had  her  suspicions, 
however,  and  wrote  to  the  Mayor  of  the  Fifth 
Arrondissement  of  Paris  to  inquire.  He  assured 
her  that  the  ceremony  had  indeed  taken  place, 
and  that  all  the  necessary  legal  formalities  had  been 
fulfilled.  She  wrote  again  to  ask  whether  the 
Mayor  could  tell  her  anything  of  Sophie's  ante- 
cedents. She  already  knew  that  Sophie  had  once 
kept  a  milliner's  shop  ;  and  she  now  learnt  that 
her  father  sold  birds  on  the  Quai  de  la  Megisserie. 

That  was  interesting,  if  not  exactly  satisfactory. 
But  how  about  Sophie's  manner  of  life  ?  Could 
the  Mayor  give  an  anxious  mother  any  informa- 
tion on  that  branch  of  the  subject? 

He  could.  He  was  a  very  obliging  Mayor,  and 
took  large  views  of  the  obligations  of  his  office. 
So  he  instructed  a  subordinate  to  devise  an  excuse 
for  calling  upon  Madame  Maurice  Dupin,  and  to 
report.  The  report  was  to  the  effect  that  the 

9 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

young  couple  were  living  in  extremely  modest 
circumstances,  but  that  their  appearance  was 
"  decent,  not  to  say  distinguished,"  that  they 
seemed  to  be  devoted  to  each  other,  and  that 
there  was  no  indication — the  Mayor  underlined 
the  words — that  the  husband  "had  any  reason  to 
repent  of  the  union  which  he  had  contracted." 
He  ventured,  therefore,  to  appeal  to  the  "  maternal 
heart "  to  forgive,  etc.  etc. 

And  still  Madame  Dupin  was  not  satisfied. 
She  had  it  in  her  mind  that  the  marriage  was 
invalid  and  could  be  annulled.  Abbe"  d'Andrezel, 
whom  she  sent  to  Paris,  armed  with  full  powers 
to  act  on  her  behalf,  reported,  after  careful 
inquiry,  that  it  could  not.  She  disbelieved  him, 
and,  going  to  Paris  herself,  took  counsel's  opinion 
on  the  matter.  There  was  a  consultation  at  which 
three  eminent  lawyers  were  present.  Their  joint 
judgment  was  that  Madame  Dupin  might  go  to 
law  if  she  liked — since  one  could  always  go  to  law 
about  anything — but  that  the  probabilities  were 
ten  to  one  that  the  Court  would  declare  the 
marriage  valid,  and  that  even  if,  by  some  accident, 
it  were  upset,  her  son  could,  and  infallibly  would, 
take  immediate  steps  to  regularise  the  situation. 

At  last,  therefore,  Madame  Dupin  had  to  admit 
that  she  was  beaten ;  and  being  beaten,  she 
allowed  herself  to  be  reconciled  to  the  accom- 
plished fact.  At  first,  though  she  caressed  her 
grandchild  and  wept  in  the  arms  of  her  son,  she 
declined  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  her  daughter- 

10 


A  Journey  to  Spain 

in-law  ;  but  it  was  not  long  before  she  yielded 
upon  that  point  also.  The  civil  marriage  was 
supplemented  by  a  religious  ceremony ;  and  a 
family  feast  celebrated  the  formal  recognition  of 
the  bride  by  her  husband's  family. 

About  the  events  of  the  next  few  years  there 
is  little  to  be  said.  Maurice  Dupin  was  with  the 
army  which,  intended  for  the  invasion  of  England, 
was  diverted  from  its  purpose  by  the  battle  of 
Trafalgar,  and  invaded  Austria  instead.  His 
letters  show  him  looking  at  life  more  and  more 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  hardy,  matter-of-fact 
campaigner.  Of  Venice,  for  instance,  he  reported 
to  his  wife  merely  that  the  water  was  ugly  and 
the  wine  was  bad.  Sophie  meanwhile  lived  with 
her  children  in  the  Rue  Grange  Bateliere, 
taking  them  occasionally  to  visit  their  Aunt  Lucie 
and  their  Cousin  Clotilde  at  Chaillot.  Caroline 
was  presently  sent  to  a  boarding-school ;  but 
Aurore  was  kept  at  home. 

After  a  while,  however,  Maurice's  letters  home 
begin  to  strike  a  new  note.  He  resents  certain 
"  suspicions  " — cruel,  of  course,  and  unfounded, 
and  unjust.  Sophie,  it  is  evident,  was  not  only 
bored  but  jealous,  though  whether  her  husband 
gave  her  any  cause  for  jealousy  it  is  impossible 
to  say.  She  decided  to  follow  him  to  the  war, 
just  as  she  had  followed  the  general,  his  pre- 
decessor. He  was  with  Murat  in  Spain,  so  she 
hired  a  carriage,  and  drove  all  the  way  to  Madrid, 
where  she  installed  herself  and  her  daughter  in 

ii 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

the  palace  allocated  to  the  general  staff.  Aurore 
was  only  three  years  old,  but  the  officers  took 
notice  of  her.  Murat  laughingly  called  her  his 
little  aide-de-camp,  and  presented  her  with  a 
uniform.  She  wore  breeches — already — and  had 
spurs  on  her  boots,  and  carried  a  toy  sword. 

Her  sojourn  in  Madrid,  however,  was  very 
brief.  The  war  was  turning  badly  for  the  French. 
Dupont  had  got  into  trouble  at  Baylen,  and  Murat 
was  called  to  the  throne  of  Naples.  Mother  and 
child  had  to  get  into  their  carriage  again  and  drive 
back  to  France,  enduring  much  privation  and 
hardship  by  the  way  ;  they  had  to  eat  soup  made 
of  candle-ends,  and  they  all  contracted  an  un- 
pleasant skin  disease.  At  last — we  are  in  the 
year  1808  —  they  reached  Nohant,  where  the 
elder  Madame  Dupin  welcomed  them  hospitably. 
It  was  there  that  Aurore  made  the  acquaintance 
of  her  natural  brother  Hippolyte — there  also  that 
she  suffered  her  first  bereavement.  Her  father  was 
thrown  from  his  horse,  on  a  dark  night,  and  killed. 

Sophie  and  the  little  Aurore  remained  at 
Nohant,  and  there  ensued  a  long  battle — silent 
at  first,  but  presently  open  and  avowed — between 
mother  and  grandmother,  for  the  right  to  educate 
and  influence  the  child. 

(^  No  ideals,  points  of  view,  or  educational  theories 
could  have  been  more  diametrically  opposed  than 
theirs.  The  grandmother  had  lived  as  a  great 
lady,  and  the  mother  had  kept  a  small  milliner's 
shop.  Scandal  could  breathe  no  word  to  the 

12 


Mother  and  Grandmother 

grandmother's  disadvantage ;  while  the  mother's 
past  might  invite,  but  decidedly  would  not  bear, 
investigation.  The  grandmother  had  been 
brought  up  in  eighteenth-century  traditions,  was 
proud  of  her  polite  accomplishments,  had  mixed 
with  encyclopaedists,  and  esteemed  them ;  the 
mother  was  vulgar,  ignorant,  and  frivolous — a 
good  cook  and  a  capable  needlewoman,  but  quite 
unfit  to  move  in  civilised  society.  Truly  a 
strange  household,  bound  in  the  nature  of  things 
to  be  divided  against  itself !  \ 

They  soon  began  to  giro  at  each  other  in  the 
child's  presence.  The  grandmother  talked  con- 
temptuously of  the  manners  of  "  certain  persons  "  ; 
the  mother  spoke,  not  less  scornfully,  of  the 
affectations  of  "  people  who  considered  themselves 
respectable."  Naturally  the  child,  though  pre- 
cocious, could  not  judge  fairly  between  them. 
To  her  it  seemed  that  her  grandmother  was  an 
unapproachable  dignitary  to  be  revered  rather 
than  loved.  Her  mother,  who  told  her  fairy  tales, 
and  sometimes  petted  her  and  sometimes  slapped 
her,  was  easier  to  understand.  Doubtless  she 
would  have  preferred  her  mother,  if  called  upon 
to  make  a  choice  ;  but  the  grandmother  had  the 
power  of  the  purse,  and  therefore  got  her  way. 
It  was  arranged  that  the  mother  should  live  in 
Paris,  and  that  the  daughter  should  stay  at 
Nohant,  only  visiting  Paris  with  her  grandmother 
when  the  necessities  of  her  education  compelled. 
That  was  in  1810. 

13 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

The  child  at  first  resented  the  arrangement,  and 
cried.  Indiscreet  companions  told  her  that  she 
ought  to  be  happy  because  her  grandmother  was 
richer  than  her  mother,  and  that,  if  she  were  not 
good,  she  would  be  sent  to  Paris  to  live  in  a 
garret,  and  have  nothing  to  eat  but  beans.  The 
result  was  to  convince  her  that  living  on  beans 
in  a  garret  was  the  most  desirable  of  human  lots. 
That  phase  passed,  however ;  and  the  child  con- 
tentedly lived  a  curious  double  life.  In  her 
grandmother's  salon  she  met  the  aristocratic 
survivors  of  the  old  regime,  and  learnt  from  them 
to  comport  herself  with  distinction.  In  her 
mother's  apartment  she  heard  the  aristocrats 
ridiculed  as  "good-for-nothing  idlers."  We  shall 
discover  traces  of  both  trainings  in  her  career  as 
we  proceed. 

In  1814  cafme  the  entry  of  the  Allies  into  Paris, 
and  then  the  grandmother  took  Aurore  precipi- 
tately to  Nohant,  and  kept  her  there  for  three 
years.  Deschartres  was  her  tutor,  and  he  taught 
her  well  enough  in  the  old-fashioned  way  ;  but 
he  was  also  a  disciplinarian  of  the  old  school,  and 
when  the  girl  grew  old  enough,  she  revolted.  He 
had  caned  her  on  the  hand,  and  she  had  sub- 
mitted ;  but  when  he  took  to  throwing  books  at 
her  head,  she  decided  that,  so  far  as  he  was  con- 
cerned, her  education  was  completed.  Her  real 
school  at  this  period  was  indeed  what  the  French 
call  "  tcole  buissoniere"  She  rambled  in  the  woods 
and  fields,  played  with  the  village  children,  entered 

14 


The  Convent  School 

into  and  realised  the  life  of  the  Berry  peasantry. 
Physically,  mentally,  and  morally,  it  was 
good  for  her.  She  stored  up  "impressions," 
and  at  the  same  time  built  up  that  robust  health 
which  was  to  enable  her,  in  later  life,  to  work  so 
hard  with  impunity. 

In  1817  she  was  confirmed,  and  received  her  first 
communion.  Religion  was  fashionable  in  France 
at  that  date,  thanks  to  Chateaubriand ;  and  even 
the  sceptical  conformed,  obeying,  as  it  were,  some 
unwritten  rule  of  etiquette.  That  was  the  spirit 
in  which  the  elder  Madame  Dupin  approached 
the  usage,  which  appears  to  have  had  little,  if 
any,  spiritual  significance  either  for  her  or  for  the 
communicant.  It  was  the  less  likely  to  have  any 
because  the  Catholic  Church  sets  its  face  against 
that  terror  of  hell  fire  which  the  Evangelical  saints 
of  the  old  school  used  to  encourage  ;  and  it  was 
not  until  she  went  to  school  in  a  convent  that 
Aurore  Dupin  learnt  to  take  religion  seriously. 

She  was  at  the  Couvent  des  Augustines  An- 
glaises  from  1817  till  1820;  and  her  rambling 
reminiscences  relate  the  most  trivial  incidents  of 
her  life  there.  First  she  was  a  naughty  girl,  and 
then  she  was  a  good  girl :  probably  she  exag- 
gerates both  her  goodness  and  her  naughtiness. 
She  seems  to  have  combined  a  passion  for  amateur 
acting  with  a  desire  to  take  the  veil  and  pass  her 
life  in  the  exalted  self-absorption  of  the  mystic. 
Perhaps  the  two  aspirations  were  less  contradictory 
than  they  appeared  :  egoism  may  well  be  assumed 

15 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

to  have  been  the  psychological  link  between  them. 
Perhaps,  too,  her  confessor  perceived  as  much 
when  he  counselled  her  to  be  in  no  hurry  to 
renounce  the  world.  At  all  events,  it  must  be 
agreed  that  he  advised  her  wisely  ;  for  imagina- 
tion boggles  at  the  picture  of  George  Sand  as  a 
nun.  Assuredly  she  would  have  suffered — and 
not  in  silence ;  assuredly  she  would  have  revolted 
—not  greatly  caring  whom  she  scandalised.  One 
can  picture  her  as  the  nun  in  John  Davidson's 
ballad  :- 

"Sometimes  it  was  the  wandering  wind, 

Sometimes  the  murmur  of  a  pine, 
Sometimes  the  thought  how  others  sinned, 
That  turned  her  warm  blood  into  wine." 


She  would  have  "wandered  down,"  one  doubts 
not,  in  the  same  way,  though  to  a  more  brilliant 
destiny,  to  the  great  consternation  of  the  Sister- 
hood. But  the  confessor  feared  and  forbade, 
and  the  grandmother  had  other  plans.  She 
tolerated  religion  on  the  tacit  assumption  that, 
of  course,  no  one  really  believed  in  it.  Voltaire, 
she  felt,  was  right,  though  Chateaubriand  was 
the  fashion.  So  having  heard  that  her  grand- 
daughter wished  to  remain  in  the  convent  for 
ever,  she  hastened  to  Paris,  and  took  her  away 
from  it  at  once. 

It  was  then  that  her  real  education  began. 
Her  mother  interfered  with  it  no  more  than 
she  had  interfered  with  the  convent  curriculum, 

16 


Early  Life  at  Nohant 

Separation  from  her  daughter,  indeed,  caused 
Sophie  no  pangs,  and  she  bluntly  declared  that 
she  would  on  no  account  visit  Nohant  again  until 
Madame  Dupin  was  dead.  The  girl,  therefore, 
now  sixteen  years  of  age,  was  entirely  in  her 
grandmother's  charge ;  and  her  grandmother's 
health  was  failing.  Not  only  was  the  old  lady 
too  ill  to  visit  Paris :  she  presently  had  an 
apoplectic  stroke  from  which  she  partially  re- 
covered only  to  lapse  into  her  second  childhood. 
From  that  time  forward,  Aurore  Dupin  was,  for 
all  practical  purposes,  her  own  mistress. 

There  were  a  good  many  books  in  the  house  ; 
so  she  read  prodigiously,  and  widened  her  horizon. 
Rousseau  interested  her,  and  so  did  Chateaubriand. 
Le  Gdnie  du  Christianisme  presented  in  a  new  and 
more  worldly  light  the  creed  hitherto  associated 
with  the  stricter  precepts  of  the  Imitatio  Christi. 
She  realised  that  it  was  possible  to  be  good 
without  being  immured ;  and  the  desire  to  be 
immured  subsided,  while  the  Arts  began  to  make 
their  appeal.  Aurore  Dupin  was  a  musician — a 
pianist  and  a  harpist ;  she  delighted  in  poetry 
and  was  interested  in  philosophy.  Once,  it  is 
true,  she  wrote  to  her  confessor  to  inquire 
whether  her  philosophic  studies  were  compatible 
with  Christian  humility.  He  doubted,  he  said 
in  reply,  whether  they  were  sufficiently  profound 
to  warrant  intellectual  pride ;  and  she  was  re- 
assured, and  went  on  studying.  She  also  acquired 
the  habit  of  smoking  while  she  studied  ;  but  it 
B  17 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

does  not  appear  that  she  consulted  the  confessor 
about  that. 

Nor  was  the  use  of  tobacco  her  only  uncon- 
ventional indulgence.  Her  natural  brother 
Hippolyte,  now  an  officer  in  the  army,  came 
home  for  a  visit,  and  taught  her  to  ride — and 
even  to  break  horses.  She  rejoiced  in  the 
exercise,  dressed  as  a  boy,  and  rode  astride. 
She  was  unchaperoned,  and  there  were  certain 
flirtations.  Her  heart  was  not  engaged,  but 
her  behaviour  set  the  neighbours  talking.  The 
village  curd  took  it  upon  himself  to  admonish 
her  in  terms  more  peremptory  than  delicate  ;  and 
she  replied  by  refusing  to  attend  his  ministra- 
tions. That  was  her  manner  of  life  until  her 
grandmother's  death.  Keen  observers  might 
well  have  seen  in  her  a  young  woman  whom  very 
little  would  induce  to  fling  her  bonnet  over  the 
windmill. 


18 


CHAPTER   III 

Death  of  Madame  Dupin — Marriage  of  George  Sand  to  Casimir 
Dudevant — Her  Platonic  friendship  with  Aurelien  de  Seze — 
How  and  why  that  friendship  came  to  an  end — Strained 
relations  with  her  husband — His  potations  and  infidelities — 
George  Sand  "  takes  a  violent  decision." 

MADAME  DUPIN  DE  FRANCUEIL  died  on  Christmas 
Day,  1821,  having  first  made  her  peace  with  the 
Church  in  which  she  did  not  believe.  She  could 
hardly  do  less,  seeing  that  there  was  an  arch- 
bishop in  the  family,  who  was  staying  in  the  house 
at  the  time.  She  would  not  do  more,  but  freely 
and  sceptically  criticised  the  text  of  the  Liturgy 
while  receiving  her  last  communion. 

Her  fortune  amounted  to  ,£20,000 ;  and  she 
bequeathed  the  whole  of  it,  subject  to  the  pay- 
ment of  certain  annuities,  to  her  granddaughter. 
As  the  girl  was  still  a  minor — seventeen  years 
old,  in  fact — she  was  to  be  under  the  guardianship 
of  Rene  de  Villeneuve,  her  nearest  relative  on  her 
father's  side.  This  arrangement,  however,  did  not 
suit  the  views  of  her  mother,  who  made  a  painful 
scene  in  the  presence  of  the  party  assembled, 
after  the  funeral,  to  hear  the  reading  of  the  will. 
She  was  her  daughter's  natural  guardian,  she 
said ;  she  would  yield  her  rights  to  no  one. 

19 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Aurore  was  indignant.  She  was  old  enough 
to  understand — she  understood — that  she  was 
called  upon  to  choose,  not  only  between  two 
individuals,  but  between  two  social  milieux. 
Rene  de  Villeneuve  belonged  to  the  old  pre- 
Revolutionary  aristocracy.  Sophie  Dupin  was  a 
grisette  whom  marriage  with  a  gentleman  had 
failed  to  educate  or  elevate,  and  who  still  remained 
a  grisette  in  manners,  tastes,  and  interests.  Her 
friends  were  grisettes  like  herself,  married,  when 
they  had  married  well,  to  half-pay,  out-at-elbows 
Bonapartist  officers.  The  two  worlds  did  not 
mix — and  would  not.  There  would  be  no  com- 
promises or  concessions — no  meeting  of  the  world 
of  the  grisettes  half-way — in  the  grandmother's 
tolerant  fashion ;  no  passing  to  and  fro  between 
the  one  circle  and  the  other.  The  father's  and 
the  mother's  families  were — and  would  remain 
—separate,  like  the  sheep  and  the  goats.  Aurore 
must  give  up  either  the  one  connection  or  the 
other. 

She  would  have  liked  to  compromise ;  but, 
when  she  could  not,  she  cast  in  her  lot  with  her 
mother.  One  is  bound  to  respect  the  instinct  on 
which  she  acted :  a  child  who  acted  otherwise 
would  have  seemed  prematurely  hard,  lacking  in 
natural  affection.  But  there  was  no  worldly 
wisdom  in  it ;  she  got  little  thanks  for  it ;  and— 
she  and  her  mother  being  what  they  respectively 
were — the  decision  made  disaster  of  some  sort 
almost  inevitable. 

20 


Casimir  Dudevant 

It  was  only  in  the  strict  legal  sense  that  Sophie 
could  be  her  daughter's  guardian.  She  could  not 
advise  her,  for  she  could  not  understand  her  /she 
could  not  even  converse  with  her  on  any  subjects 
except  food  and  raiment.  The  child  had  to  think 
out  for  herself  the  problem  of  arranging  her  life  ; 
and  it  was  a  problem  which  could  not  be  kept 
waiting ;  and  she  was  only  seventeen  and  a  half. 
She,  the  clever  pupil  of  the  fashionable  Couvent 
des  Anglaises,  sharing  the  home  and  living  under 
the  tutelage  of  a  woman  with  the  manners  of  a 
shop-girl  and  the  brains  of  a  bird,  felt  herself  in 
a  situation  which  would  have  seemed  absurd  if  it 
had  not  been  lamentable :  a  situation,  at  any  rate, 
from  which  she  must  seek  the  way  out  as  soon  as 
possible.^  And  the  most  natural  way  out  seemed 
to  lie  through  marriage. 

Her  opportunities  of  marriage  were,  of  course, 
restricted  by  her  manner  of  life.  She  knew  hardly 
any  of  the  right  sort  of  people — such  people  as 
she  might  have  been  introduced  to  by  the  de 
Villeneuves  ;  and,  among  people  of  that  kind,  it 
was  at  least  a  question  whether  the  objection  to 
the  mother-in-law  did  not  outweigh  the  attraction 
of  the  bride's  fortune.  Still,  the  fortune  was  sure 
to  bring  her  suitors  of  a  kind — suitors  who  would 
at  least  pass  ;  and  in  due  course  it  brought  Casimir 
Dudevant,  whose  acquaintance  Aurore  Dupin 
made  while  on  a  visit  to  some  old  friends  of 
her  father's,  the  Duplessis,  of  Plessis-Picard,  near 
Melun. 

21 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Casimir  was  the  natural  son  of  a  Baron 
Dudevant.  He  had  served  two  years  in  the 
army,  and  had  also  been  called  to  the  Bar.  We 
who  look  back  on  the  story  can  easily  see  that, 
whatever  his  qualities,  he  was  not  fit  or  worthy  to 
be  the  husband  of  a  woman  of  genius.  He  had 
neither  artistic  nor  intellectual  tastes.  One  may 
perhaps  sum  him  up  by  saying  that  he  was  a  bit 
of  a  sportsman,  a  bit  of  a  farmer,  and  a  bit  of  a 
fool ;  and  one  knows  that  that  sort  of  man,  far 
from  improving  as  he  grows  older,  is  prone  to 
take  to  stronger  drink  and  coarser  pleasures,  in 
order  to  cheat  the  increasing  tedium  of  life.  But 
of  course  Aurore  could  not,  at  seventeen  and  a 
half,  be  expected  to  think  of  that.  She  could  no 
more  foresee  the  Casimir  of  ten  years  later  than 
she  could  foresee  her  own  great  mental  growth. 
Her  intellectual  superiority  was  masked  by  the 
fact  that  she  was  ten  years  his  junior.  Casimir 
was  good-looking,  and  made  himself  agreeable. 
His  family  were  well-disposed.  The  Baroness 
came  to  call  on  the  grisette.  Aurore  liked  him, 
and  on  September  10,  1822,  she  married  him, 
being  then  only  a  little  more  than  eighteen  years 
of  age. 

Biographers  usually  pause  at  this  stage  to 
remark  that,  if  Aurore  had  remained  single  a 
little  longer,  and  had  then  married  a  better  man 
to  whom  she  was  more  attached,  she  might  have 
lived  happily  ever  afterwards.  All  that  the  facts 
really  warrant  one  in  saying  is  that  she  would  un- 


i& 

22 


Incompatibility  of  Temper 

doubtedly  have  done  her  duty  if  it  had  coincided 
with  her  inclination.  The  marriage  which  she  did 
conclude  at  any  rate  contained  from  the  first  the 
germs  of  disintegration.  The  one  mind  was  ex- 
panding, while  the  other  mind  was  stagnant ;  to 
the  stagnant  mind  the  expanding  mind  was  bound 
to  become  incomprehensible,  and  its  inconipre- 
hensibleness  was  certain  to  be  resented. 

Broadly  speaking,  that  is  what  happened.  The 
wife  developed  first  an  artistic  temperament,  and 
then  artistic  gifts.  The  husband  remained  a  fool, 
a  farmer,  and  a  sportsman,  too  much  addicted  to 
the  bottle,  too  much  wrapped  up  in  miserly 
economies.  Presumably  he  found  his  wife's 
cleverness  a  nuisance.  It  was  an  implied 
criticism  of  his  own  stupidity ;  it  made  him 
look  and  feel  foolish.  He  did  not  set  up  for 
being  clever ;  why  should  he  be  perpetually  re- 
minded of  his  limitations  ?  He  had  supposed 
himself  to  be  marrying  a  silly  girl  who  was 
going  to  remain  silly.  This  post-conjugal  mental 
expansion  was  something  uncommonly  like  a 
breach  of  contract.  At  any  rate,  it  made  the 
house  exceedingly  uncomfortable.  And  as  for 
the  cleverness — well,  after  all,  cleverness  was  a 
matter  of  opinion,  and  his  opinion  was  as  good  as 
another's.  So  he  would  seem  to  have  argued. 
He  didn't  think  his  wife's  conversation  clever — 
he  thought  it  silly.  He  told  her  so,  and  told  her 
to  stop  it ;  and  presently  he  went  a  little  further 
and  boxed  her  ears.  "  After  that,"  she  says,  in 

23 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

her  Autobiography,  "  things  proceeded  from  bad 
to  worse." 

Husband  and  wife,  in  fact,  though  there  was  as 
yet  no  avowed  and  open  breach,  began  to  go  their 
several  ways.  Casimir  increased  his  potations,  in 
which  Aurore's  natural  brother  Hippolyte  was  his 
boon  companion,  and,  bored  as  well  as  puzzled  by 
a  wife  who  was  always  "looking  for  midday  at 
fourteen  o'clock,"  sought  his  "escape  from  life" 
in  the  facile  arms  of  his  wife's  chambermaid. 
Aurore,  on  the  other  hand,  being  unable  to  ex- 
change ideas  with  a  husband  who  had  none,  tried 
to  make  existence  more  tolerable  by  means  of 
Platonic  friendships. 

The  Platonic  friend — the  first  and  chief  Platonic 
friend — was  Aur&ien  de  Seze,  Advocate- General 
at  Bordeaux,  whom  she  met  in  the  course  of  an 
excursion  to  the  Pyrenees  in  1825.  Casimir 
frequently  went  to  Bordeaux  to  do  business  with 
a  certain  Desgranges,  a  shipbuilder  who  persuaded 
him  to  take  ^1000  worth  of  shares  in  a  ship  that 
was  never  built ;  Aurore,  for  her  own  reasons, 
accompanied  him  when  she  could.  She  and  her 
friend  conversed — and  afterwards  corresponded — 
on  art,  and  poetry,  and  philosophy,  and  all  the 
other  subjects  that  her  husband  did  not  under- 
stand. He  may  justly  be  said  to  have  helped  to 
educate  her.  Life  derived  fresh  interests  and 
fresh  meanings  from  the  intellectual  intercourse. 

It  was  delightful  while  it  lasted,  but  it  did  not 
last  long.  Two  reasons  have  been  assigned  for 

24 


A  Platonic  Friendship 

the  rupture,  and  it  is  likely  enough  that  two 
causes  were  operative.  It  is  said  that  the  pure 
white  flame  of  Platonism  failed  when  Aurelien  de 
Seze  found  that  the  unhappy  woman  who  had 
wished  to  be  united  to  him  on  the  plane  of  pure 
and  mystic  passion  bore  children  to  her  coarse 
fool  of  a  husband,  just  like  any  other  wife ;  an 
ideal  seemed  to  have  been  defiled  when,  coming 
to  visit  her  at  Nohant,  he  found  that  she  was 
enceinte.  It  is  possible  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that 
their  union  had,  from  the  first,  contained  the 
germs  of  a  spiritual  divorce. 

Aurelien  de  Seze  was  a  magistrate — an  excep- 
tionally cultivated  magistrate,  but  a  magistrate 
none  the  less.  He  loved  literature,  and  dabbled 
in  philosophy ;  but  formulae  bounded  his  intel- 
lectual horizon.  He  led  his  pupil  up  to  them, 
and  then  was  shocked  to  see  her  pass  beyond 
them.  Aurelien,  in  the  Revolutionary  days  to 
come,  was  to  be  a  deputy  of  the  Extreme  Right ; 
Aurore  was  to  collaborate  with  the  Socialists. 
Evidently,  therefore,  the  cessation  of  their 
harmonious  communion  of  ideas  was  only  a 
question  of  time.  Passion  might  have  stood  the 
strain,  but  Platonism  could  not.  "  I  felt,"  George 
Sand  wrote,  in  later  years,  "that  I  was  becoming 
a  terrible  tie  for  him — or  else  a  mere  distraction." 

So  the  tie,  without  being  formally  broken,  was 
allowed  to  break.  It  would  not  appear  that 
there  was  any  dramatic  scene  of  quarrel  or 
explanation.  Neither  of  the  friends  had  acquired 

25 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

any  rights  over  the  other,  and  neither  could 
complain  of  any  wrongs.  "  One  is  no  more 
justified,"  George  Sand  wrote,  "in  claiming  the 
ownership  of  a  soul  than  in  claiming  the  owner- 
ship of  a  slave."  It  was  a  piece  of  philosophy 
which  she  was  to  put  into  more  than  one  novel 
in  the  years  to  come  ;  and  she  was  content  to  act 
upon  it  now.  She  and  her  friend  must  acquiesce 
in  the  inevitable  and  anticipate  it,  passing  quietly 
out  of  each  other's  lives.  So  she  concludes  :— 

"  One  must  allow  man  his  liberty,  and  the  soul 
its  natural  impulses,  and  leave  to  God  the  flame 
that  emanates  from  God.  When  this  tranquil  but 
irrevocable  divorce  was  accomplished,  I  tried  to 
continue  the  existence  which  had  not  been  modi- 
fied or  disturbed  by  any  external  event." 

"But  that,"  she  proceeds,  "was  impossible;" 
and  one  can  easily  see  why.  Not  only  were 
things,  as  she  had  said,  "proceeding  from  bad  to 
worse ; "  she  had  no  longer  anything  to  distract 
her  mind,  and  prevent  her  from  perceiving  that 
they  were  doing  so. 

She  was  grown  up  at  last.  The  child-wife  had 
become  the  brilliant  woman  —  unconventional, 
original,  unhappy,  and  capable  of  action.  She 
had  really  been — or  seemed — a  child-wife  to  begin 
with  :  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  submissive 
type  of  woman  who,  wrapped  in  small  household 
cares,  will  accept  inebriety,  if  not  too  frequent, 

26 


Domestic  Broils 

and  infidelity,  if  not  too  open,  as  peccadilloes  to 
be  forgiven  and  forgotten.  She  had  been  a 
devoted  mother  to  her  two  children — Maurice 
and  Solange ;  and  she  had  taken  herself  quite 
seriously  as  a  chatelaine,  interested  in  her  humbler 
neighbours  to  the  point  of  doctoring  their 
ailments  ;  but  her  mental  and  emotional  expansion 
had  none  the  less  been  continuous.  She  had  read, 
and  was  thinking  for  herself.  She  had  little 
enough  in  common  with  the  bibulous  squireen, 
even  when  he  was  on  his  best  behaviour ;  and 
now  his  behaviour  was  deteriorating,  as  the 
behaviour  of  such  men  nearly  always  does. 

He  grew  avaricious,  and  though  he  was 
practically  living  on  his  wife,  grudged  her 
her  personal  allowance.  He  sat  late  with  boon 
companions, — his  wife's  natural  brother  Hippolyte, 
and  Stephane  Ajasson  de  Grandsagne,  who  had 
sighed  for  her  when  she  was  a  child, — and  he 
was  not  only  tiresome  in  his  cups,  but  coarse, 
abusive,  and  indecorous.  And  he  deceived  his 
wife — or  rather,  he  didtnot  deceive  her.  He  had 
had  an  "affair"  at  Bordeaux  with  the  mistress  of 
his  swindling  partner,  Desgranges ;  at  Nohant 
his  amours  with  the  maid-servants  were  the 
common  talk  of  the  village.  One  of  the  maids 
made  a  scandal  in  order  to  secure  provision  for 
her  illegitimate  child ;  his  wife,  on  the  very 
morning  after  the  birth  of  her  daughter,  over- 
heard him  making  love  to  another  of  them.  The 
strain  became  intolerable  when  she  had  no  longer 

27 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

the  exaltation  of  her  mystical  Platonic  friendship 
to  sustain  her.  "  At  last,"  she  says,  "  it  began  to 
get  upon  my  nerves." 

The  Autobiography  does  not  tell  us  how  the 
climax  was  reached,  but  the  Correspondence 
does. 

There  was  a  certain  Jules  Boucoiran,  for  whom 
destiny  held  in  store  the  editorship  of  a  provincial 
journal.  At  the  moment  he  was  private  tutor  in 
the  family  of  General  Bertrand  ;  but  he  had  been 
for  a  little  while  the  tutor  of  Madame  Dudevant's 
boy  Maurice.  We  gather  from  the  letters  that 
he  was  a  good  fellow  on  the  whole,  though  rather 
an  unlicked  cub,  and  that  Madame  Dudevant  had 
been  kind  to  him,  and  had  admonished  him,  after 
the  manner  of  an  elder  sister.  He  had  had  a 
bad  habit  of  spending  his  evenings  gossiping 
with  the  servants  in  the  kitchen,  and  she  had 
cured  him  of  it.  He  had  learnt  to  sit  in  the 
drawing-room  and  talk  to  her  instead  ;  and  she 
had  come  to  confide  in  him,  and  to  address  him, 
when  she  wrote,  no  longer  as  "  Monsieur,"  but  as 
"Mon  cher  Jules,"  or  "  Mon  cher  enfant."  To 
him,  in  preference  to  her  mother  or  any  other 
of  her  correspondents,  she  confided  that  she  had 
"  taken  a  violent  decision." 

One  day,  she  wrote,  she  had  occasion  to  look 
for  something  in  her  husband's  desk.  She  found, 
not  what  she  sought,  but  a  packet  addressed  to 
herself,  and  marked  "  Not  to  be  opened  until  after 
my  death."  Her  relation  proceeds  :— 

28 


Separation 

"  I  had  not  the  patience  to  await  my  widow- 
hood. No  one  with  such  health  as  mine  can  rely 
upon  surviving  anybody.  I  assumed  my  husband's 
death,  and  I  was  very  glad  to  learn  what  he  thought 
of  me  during  his  life.  The  packet  being  addressed 
to  me  I  could  open  it  without  indiscretion,  and, 
my  husband  being  in  good  health,  I  could  read 
his  last  will  and  testament  in  cold  blood. 

"  My  God !  What  a  will !  His  maledictions 
on  me,  and  nothing  more.  There  were  all  his 
bad  tempers  and  angry  passions,  all  his  reflections 
on  my  perversity,  all  his  expressions  of  contempt 
for  my  character.  And  that  was  what  he  left  me 
as  a  pledge  of  his  affection !  I  thought  I  must 
be  dreaming — I  who,  up  till  then,  had  kept  my 
eyes  shut  and  refused  to  see  that  I  was  despised. 
The  perusal  woke  me  at  last  from  my  slumber. 
I  told  myself  that  to  live  with  a  man  who  neither 
respected  nor  trusted  his  wife  would  be  like 
trying  to  raise  the  dead  to  life.  My  mind  was 
made  up — and  I  venture  to  say  irrevocably.  You 
know  that  I  do  not  use  that  word  lightly. 

"  Without  waiting  another  day,  weak  and  ill 
though  I  still  was,  I  stated  my  wishes,  and  gave 
my  reasons  for  them,  with  a  readiness  and  a 
sangfroid  which  petrified  him.  He  had  not  ex- 
pected that  such  a  creature  as  I  could  stand  up 
to  him.  He  grumbled  ;  he  argued  ;  he  entreated. 
I  remained  unmoved.  /  must  have  an  allowance,  I 
said.  /  shall  go  to  Paris,  and  my  children  will 
remain  at  Nohant" 

29 


CHAPTER   IV 

George  Sand's  acquaintance  with   Jules   Sandeau— She  goes  to 
Paris  and  lives  with  him  "in  an  unconventional  manner "- 
Her  literary  beginnings — Her  delight  in  her  emancipation 
— Her  happiness. 

PERHAPS  Madame  Dudevant's  decision  to  go  to 
Paris  was  not  taken  quite  so  suddenly  as  she 
gave  Jules  Boucoiran  to  understand.  Because 
she  confided  in  him  it  does  not  follow  that  she 
told  him  everything ;  and  there  must  have  been 
a  good  deal  that  it  was  superfluous  to  tell  him 
because  he  knew  it. 

She  already  had  friends  at  Paris  :  friends  of 
her  grandmother,  old  schoolfellows — and  others. 
The  clever  young  men  of  her  own  neighbourhood 
went  to  Paris  to  seek  their  fortunes  when  they 
grew  up.  They  sought  it,  for  the  more  part, 
in  the  Latin  Quarter,  and  were  caught,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  vortex  of  the  Romantic  Movement. 
Pretending  to  laugh  at  it,  they  nevertheless  eddied 
round.  They  called  themselves  Hugolaters  ;  and 
they  woke  worthy  tradesmen  from  their  sleep 
by  bawling  satirical  refrains  about  " grocers"; 
" grocer"  being,  at  that  period,  the  French  for 
a  Philistine — an  enemy  of  light. 

When  they  came  home  for  their  holidays, 

30 


Nohant  Society 

Madame  Dudevant  cultivated  their  society.  No 
doubt  it  was  the  most  amusing  society  available 
for  her ;  and  the  young  men,  we  cannot  question, 
found  her  more  companionable  than  the  usual 
and  conventional  provincial  chatelaine.  Life  was 
not  so  dull  at  Nohant  but  that  there  occasionally 
were  dances,  dinners,  and  musical  evenings,  and 
certain  quieter  parties  at  which,  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  age,  the  young  people  took  it  in 
turns  to  read  poetry  aloud.  It  was  a  faint  re- 
flection of  the  greater  literary  life  of  the  capital, 
and  stimulated  a  desire  for  it.  When  the  young 
men  were  absent,  Madame  Dudevant  corre- 
sponded with  them  in  a  spirit  of  gay  camaraderie  ; 
and  thus  the  memory  was  kept  alive,  and  the 
desire  was  further  stimulated. 

Of  course  the  neighbours  talked.  They  had 
nothing  to  do  but  talk — and  very  little  else  to 
talk  about.  No  doubt  the  gossips,  after  the 
manner  of  provincial  gossips,  made  a  little 
scandal  go  a  long  way ;  but  it  is  also  fairly 
certain  that  some  material  for  gossip  was  fur- 
nished. Madame  Dudevant  was  half  a  Bohemian 
by  birth  and  upbringing ;  and  if,  in  her  mother's 
case,  she  had  found  Bohemianism  allied  with 
intellectual  darkness,  here  she  found  it  associated 
with  "the  movement,"  and  with  new  ideas.  So 
it  appears  that  a  good  deal  was  based  upon  certain 
surreptitious  meetings  in  the  woods ;  and  she 
owns,  in  one  of  her  letters,  to  being  credited— 
ridiculously  and  unjustly — with  "four  lovers": 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"not  too  many,  they  say,"  she  comments,  "for 
anyone  with  such  lively  passions  as  mine." 

Three  of  the  lovers,  at  all  events,  may,  with- 
out hesitation,  be  struck  off  the  list.  Fleury, 
Duvernet,  and  Boucoiran  were  never  more  than 
friends.  Jules  Sandeau  was  certainly  to  become 
more  than  a  friend  a  little  later ;  but  there  is  no 
real  reason  for  doubting  her  own  statement  that, 
at  this  stage,  she  hardly  knew  whether  she  was 
in  love  with  him  or  not.  She  knew  his  hat  by 
sight,  for  he  used  to  adorn  it  with  a  red  cord  ; 
and  when  she  visited  houses  at  which  she  might 
meet  him,  she  used  to  look  for  that  hat  in  the 
hall.  It  was  a  symptom,  no  doubt,  but  she  did 
not  recognise  the  significance  of  it  until  afterwards. 
All  that  she  realised,  for  the  time  being,  was  that 
a  circle  of  friends  of  whom  Jules  Sandeau  was 
the  most  interesting  awaited  her  in  Paris  when- 
ever she  chose  to  go  there — friends  who  were 
in  touch  with  art  and  letters,  and  with  whom 
she  could  live  on  terms  of  Bohemian  camaraderie. 
And  then  the  crash  came — and  the  crash  was  the 
excuse  for  her  departure. 

It  was  open  to  her,  of  course,  on  leaving  her 
husband,  to  live  a  subdued  and  decorous  life, 
keeping  up  appearances  on  three  thousand  francs 
a  year,  pitied  and  patronised  by  perfectly  respect- 
able people.  The  censorious  may  censure  her 
for  not  doing  so  if  they  choose  ;  but  they  must 
also  admit  that,  if  she  had  done  so,  she  would 
not  have  been  George  Sand.  Her  desire  was 

32 


From  the   Faubourg  to  the  Quarter 

to  escape  not  only  from  her  husband  but  from 
the  conventions — to  be  free,  to  earn  money,  to 
"live,"  as  the  modern  phrase  goes,  "her  own 
life."  She  knew  quite  well  that  this  involved 
a  sacrifice ;  that,  Must  as,  once  before,  she  had 
had  to  choose  between  her  father's  and  her 
mother's  friends,  so  now  she  must  choose  between 
the  Faubourg  and  the  Quarter.  But  she  made 
her  choice ;  she  abode  by  it,  and  she  did  not 
regret  it.  "\ 

It  was  no  case  of  drifting.     The  act  was  de- 
liberate, and  all  those  who  might  consider  that  it 
concerned  them  were  formally  notified.     Madame 
Dudevant  left,  as   it  were,  her  P.P.C.  cards  on 
the    Faubourg  before    taking   her   departure   for 
the    Quarter,    making    farewell    calls    upon    the 
sisters  at  her  convent  school,  and  some  old  school- 
fellows   who    had    married    and    become    ladies 
of  fashion.      They  asked  her  to  come  and  see 
them  again,  and  she  promised ;  but  she  did  not 
mean  to  come,  and  they  did  not  expect  or  desire 
to  see  her.     For  she  intended — and  perhaps  had 
already  begun — to  make  light  of  the  proprieties. 
"The  proprieties,"  she  wrote  to  Jules  Boucoiran, 
who  was  living  at  La  Chatre  as  her  son's  tutor, 
"are  the  guiding  principle  of  people  without  soul 
and  virtue.     The  good  opinion  of  the  world  is 
a   prostitute,    who   gives   herself  to   the   highest 
bidder."     Among  "people  who  considered  them- 
selves respectable,"   as  her  mother  would   have 
put  it,  there  was  no  place  for  anyone  who  thus 
C  33 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

openly  outraged  the  conventions.  There  was 
hardly  any  place  for  such  a  one  even  in  the 
salon  of  Madame  Rdcamier.  Madame  Dudevant 
was  invited  there,  "  but  had  the  good  sense,"  she 
says,  "to  refuse  to  go." 

The  introductions  which  she  valued  were  those 
to  men  of  letters  who  could  help  her  to  begin  a 
literary  career.  One  of  the  introductions  was  to 
M.  de  K^ratry,  the  author  of  Le  Dernier  des 
Beaumanoir.  He  was  amiable,  but  they  did 
not  suit  each  other.  "  I  have  had  enough  of 
him,"  she  wrote.  "One  must  not  see  celebrities 
at  too  close  quarters."  The  other  introduction 
was  to  Latouche  of  the  Figaro.  He  was 
neither  amiable  nor  encouraging,  but  he  was 
helpful.  Madame  Dudevant  had  brought  manu- 
scripts with  her  to  Paris,  and  she  took  them  to 
him.  He  read  them,  and  his  verdict  was  some- 
thing less  than  flattering.  The  work,  he  said, 
"lacked  common  sense."  It  needed  not  merely 
to  be  revised,  but  to  be  re-written.  But  he  did 
not,  like  Kdratry,  advise  her  to  "make  babies 
instead  of  books."  On  the  contrary,  he  laughed 
when  she  told  him  what  K^ratry  had  said ;  and 
he  laughed  still  more  at  her  reply,  "  Make  them 
yourself,  if  you  can  ; "  and  he  took  her  on  the  staff 
of  his  paper. 

It  was  not  much  of  a  post  as  newspaper  posts 
go  :  "  the  lowest  of  trades  "  is  her  own  description 
of  the  calling,  and  she  speaks  of  herself  as  a 
newspaper  mechanic.  She  sat  all  day  long  in 

34 


Bohemian  Amusements 

the  office,  and  wrote  whatever  she  was  told  to 
write — short  stories,  leaders,  humorous  para- 
graphs. It  was  made  clear  to  her  that,  however 
clever  she  might  be,  she  had  much  to  learn. 
Latouche  tore  up  some  of  her  copy,  and  defaced 
the  rest  with  his  blue  pencil.  "  Ah  !  if  you  knew 
the  man ! "  she  exclaims  in  humorous  irritation. 
And  her  pay  for  the  copy  that  survived  the  blue 
pencil  was  only  at  the  scale  rate  of  seven  francs 
a  column. 

Yet  she  was  happy,  and  even  in  high  spirits. 
Her  resentment  against  her  husband  dis- 
appeared in  her  delight  at  her  emancipation. 
She  did  indeed  warn  Boucoiran  to  beware  of 
the  incalculable  vagaries  of  his  temper ;  but 
she  also  corresponded  with  him  amicably  about 
the  purchase  of  a  new  pair  of  knickerbockers  for 
the  little  Maurice,  and  other  matters  which 
concerned  them  jointly.  Since  it  was  a  part  of 
their  arrangement  that  she  should  visit  Nohant 
from  time  to  time  to  see  the  children,  it  was  no 
doubt  the  better,  as  well  as  the  more  cordial 
way.  Presently  she  was  to  fetch  Solange ;  and, 
in  the  meantime,  she  enjoyed  herself  like  a 
schoolboy  out  for  a  holiday,  going  to  see  the 
great  actors  and  to  hear  the  great  preachers, 
exploring  the  streets,  sitting  in  the  cafe's,  dressing 
herself  like  a  man,  and  smoking  long  cigars. 

One  does  not  gather  from  her  letters  that  she 
had,  as  yet,  any  passionate  desire  for  literary 
fame.  She  writes,  at  all  events,  that  her  pre- 
35 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

dominant  desire  is  not  for  glory  but  for  money  ; 
and  she  professes  admiration  for  the  modest  and 
retiring  habits  of  "the  great  B^ranger."  Even 
when  she  realises  that  fortune  does  not  favour 
the  anonymous,  she  is  not  moved  to  push  her 
own  name  forward — the  less  so  because  one  of 
the  editors  to  whom  she  wishes  to  offer  her 
work  is  "a  woman-hater."  So  she  collaborates, 
and  borrows  the  name  of  her  collaborator — 
Jules  Sandeau.  "  A  compatriot  who  has  agreed 
to  lend  me  his  name,"  was  her  description  of 
him  to  Latouche. 

The  name  was  to  become  notable  thereafter, 
but  it  meant  little  or  nothing  then.  Jules 
Sandeau  was  merely  a  clever  young  man  from 
the  country,  intended  for  the  profession  of  the 
law,  but  fully  determined  in  his  own  mind  to 
follow  the  profession  of  letters.  He  was  little 
more  than  a  boy  ;  to  be  precise,  he  was  twenty 
years  of  age — just  seven  years  younger  than 
Madame  Dudevant.  But  he  was  in  Paris  before 
her,  well  acquainted  with  the  Quarter,  proud  to 
serve  as  her  guide  in  the  land  where  chaperons 
are  not.  He  went,  F&ix  Pyat  tells  us,  to  meet 
the  diligence  on  the  day  of  her  arrival. 

Of  course  he  was  in  love  with  her.  She  was 
as  Bohemian  in  her  affability  as  a  grisette — yet 
a  lady,  and  a  woman  of  rare  intelligence ;  and 
she  had  beautiful  eyes,  and  had  shown  him 
certain  preferences.  Romance  could  hardly  set 
such  a  snare  for  a  romantic  youth  in  vain  ;  and 

36 


Jules  Sandeau 

the  rest  followed  as  a  conclusion  from  its  premises. 
In  the  country,  it  may  be,  he  would  have  been 
content  to  love  in  vain — to  sigh  humbly  and 
hopelessly  at  a  distance,  remembering  that  he 
was  a  mere  boy,  and  that  she  was  a  chatelaine 
and  a  mother.  But  now  they  were  together  in 
Bohemia — the  land  of  the  faux  mdnage\  and 
the  followers  of  Saint-Simon  compassed  them 
about,  preaching  the  gospel  of  free  love.  Youth 
is  inevitably  emboldened  in  such  a  case ;  and  it 
was  not  long  before  Jules  Sandeau  took  his 
courage  in  his  two  hands.  "  I  resisted  him  for 
six  months,"  says  Madame  Dudevant ;  but  then 
she  yielded.  For  a  season,  broken  by  intervals 
in  which  Madame  Dudevant  revisited  her  home, 
the  collaborators  lived  together.  "  I  lived  in 
my  apartment  in  an  unconventional  style,"  is  the 
euphemistic  reference  to  the  incident  in  the 
Autobiography. 

It  is  an  arrangement  on  which,  no  doubt,  one 
could  pass  a  moral  judgment ;  but  it  is  hardly 
worth  while  to  do  anything  so  obvious.  What 
is  intqresting  is  not  the  morality  of  the  partner- 
ship, (but  the  motive  for  it ;  and  on  this  the 
Letters  throw  some  light.  Madame  Dudevant 
seems  to  have  felt  that  some  such  act  of  open 
revolt  was  necessary  to  her  self-respect.  She 
could  not  endure  the  humiliating  position  of  the 
injured  wife,  pitied  by  her  friends  because  her 
husband  neglected  her  and  made  love  to  her 
maids,  in  her  house  if  not  in  her  presence.  It 

37 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

seemed  to  her  that  there  was  more  dignity  in  a 
compact  whereby  he  went  his  way  and  she  went 
hers.  Enjoying  her  liberty,  and  letting  it  be 
known  that  she  enjoyed  it,  she  could  not  only 
hold  up  her  head  but  forget  her  rancour ;  and 
as  for  the  morality  of  the  proceeding,  no  doubt 
she  looked  at  it  from  the  Bohemian  point  of 
view.  She  wanted  a  home-life  of  a  sort,  as 
Bohemians  often  do,  and  her  own  home  had 
been  made  impossible  to  her.  j  The  step  which 
she  was  taking  might  make  all  the  difference  to 
her  own  happiness,  and  could  not  well  impair 
the  happiness  of  anybody  else. 

So  she  made  the  experiment,  and  it  seemed  to 
answer.  She  and  Jules  helped  each  other  with 
their  work,  and  made  each  other  happy.  They 
wrote  a  novel  together,  and  they  wrote  novels 
separately.  This  was  the  period  of  Rose  et 
Blanche  (^yy  Jules  Sand),  of  Indiana,  of  Valentine, 
etc.,  in  which  Madame  Dudevant  definitely 
assumes  her  new  identity  as  George  Sand  ;  and 
perhaps  this  is  the  place  in  which  to  quote  the 
eulogy  of  the  charms  of  his  mistress  which  Jules 
Sandeau  penned  in  later  years.  It  will  be  found 
in  Marianna,  written  in  1839.  The  lovers  had 
long  since  separated — in  circumstances  to  be 
related  presently — when  that  romance  appeared  ; 
but  Jules  Sandeau  had  not  forgotten. 

"She  had  been  brought  up  in  the   country," 
he  writes,  "and  had  now  for  the  first  time  left  it ; 

38 


A  Character  Sketch 

and  her /manners  showed  a  strange  combination 
of  boldness  and  timidity.)  Sometimes,  indeed, 
she  affected  a  kind  of  petulant  brusquerie,  the 
result  of  a  secret  uneasiness,  and  an  ardour  that 
ran  to  waste.  She  had  almost  a  man's  familiarity 
of  address,  so  that  it  was  easy  to  be  intimate 
with  her ;  but  her  haughty  chastity  and  her 
instinctively  aristocratic  air  mingled  with  her 
'  abandon '  certain  suggestions,  as  it  were,  of  a 
virgin  and  of  a  duchess,  contrasting  strangely  with 
her  disdain  for  the  proprieties  and  her  ignorance 
of  the  world.  All  the  evidence  revealed  in  her 
a  richly  endowed  nature,  stirring  impatiently 
beneath  the  weight  of  a  wealth  not  yet  called  into 
activity.  Life — palpitating  life — seemed  to  move 
among  the  curls  of  her  beautiful  black  hair ;  and 
there  burnt  as  it  were  a  hidden  fire  beneath  her 
delicate  and  transparent  skin.  The  purity  of  her 
brow  indicated  that  the  storms  of  passion  had 
not  yet  broken  upon  that  noble  head  ;  but  the  ex- 
pression of  her  eyes,  burning,  yet  weak  and  tired, 
spoke  of  terrible  interior  struggles,  ceaseless  but 
unavowed." 

That  was  the  retrospect — the  bitter,  yet  linger- 
ing and  longing  recollection  of  charms  that  were 
no  more  for  him.  One  easily  infers  from  it  the 
intoxicating  happiness  of  the  days  before  dispute 
and  disillusion ;  and  of  George  Sand's  happiness 
her  letters  give  irrefragable  testimony.  She 
writes  to  Duvernet : — 

39 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  How  I  wish  I  could  impart  to  you  this  sense 
of  the  intensity  and  joyousness  of  life  that  I  have 
in  my  veins  and  in  my  breast.  To  live!  How 
sweet  it  is,  and  how  good,  in  spite  of  annoyances, 
husbands,  boredom,  debts,  relations,  scandal- 
mongers, sufferings,  and  irritations  !  To  live  !  It 
is  intoxicating!  To  love,  and  to  be  loved!  It  is 
happiness !  It  is  heaven  !  " 


40 


CHAPTER   V 

Literary  success— A  retainer  from  Buloz— Passionate  relations 
with  Jules  Sandeau— His  infidelity  detected— The  lovers 
part — George  Sand's  retrospective  references  to  the 
amour. 

WE  have  seen  that  George  Sand — we  need  no 
longer  speak  of  her  as  Madame  Dudevant — was 
happy.  She  was  also,  though  not  yet  famous  or 
rich,  beginning  to  be  successful. 

Her  note  was  new  to  fiction.  She  wrote 
enthusiastically  of  illicit  love,  picturing  it  under  the 
benevolent  protection  and  patronage  of  the  Divine 
Providence  which  overrules  all  things  for  good. 
Though  she  held  somewhat  aloof  from  the  Saint- 
Simonians  on  the  ground  that  the  priestess  of  the 
sect  was  chiefly  anxious  to  "show  off  her  sky-blue 
frock  and  her  swan's-down  boa,"  she  nevertheless 
preached  free  love  in  the  name  of  true  religion. 
"In  George  Sand,"  a  cynical  critic  has  written, 
"  when  a  lady  wants  to  change  her  lover,  God  is 
always  there  to  facilitate  the  transfer."  But 
though  cynics  might  mock  at  that  sort  of  thing, 
there  was  a  public  for  it.  The  authoress  was 
soon  able  to  tell  her  friends  that  the  leading 
reviews  were  "fighting  for"  her  serials;  and 
she  presently  accepted  from  the  great  Buloz, 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  a  retaining  fee 
of  £  1 60  a  year. 

She  continued  to  divide  her  time  between  Paris 
and  Nohant — between  her  lover's  apartment  and 
her  husband's  country  house.  Her  son  remained 
in  the  country  with  his  tutor  ;  but  she  had  Solange 
with  her  in  Paris  when  she  could.  Those  who 
disapprove  most  strongly  of  her  conduct  cannot 
deny  that  she  was  as  devoted  a  mother  as  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  allowed.  Her  letters  to 
the  elder  child  are  full  not  only  of  affection  but  of 
admirable  precepts  ;  she  was  never  more  happy 
than  when  taking  the  younger  one  to  see  the  wild 
beasts  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes.  Her  life  might 
be  at  the  beginning  of  a  tangle  not  easily  to  be 
unravelled  ;  but  there  were  certain  old-fashioned 
virtues  to  which  she  clung,  and  would  always  con- 
tinue to  cling.  Her  instincts,  in  these  regards, 
were  invariably  sound ;  and,  as  we  shall  have 
frequent  occasion  to  see  as  we  proceed,  she 
always  loved  to'  preserve — and  even  to  create — 
the  atmosphere  of  the  home  in  the  midst  of  her 
most  Bohemian  escapades.  ] 

Of  the  nature  of  her  relations  with  her  husband 
at  this  stage  something  has  already  been  said. 
We  find,  as  it  were,  a  locus  classicus  concerning 
them  in  one  of  her  letters  to  her  mother.  "It  is 
only  fair,"  she  writes,  "that  the  great  liberty 
which  my  husband  enjoys  should  be  reciprocal. 
Otherwise  he  would  seem  odious  and  contemptible 
to  me — and  that  he  does  not  desire."  And 

42 


Correspondence 

Casimir  Dudevant  endorses  this  view  of  the  situa- 
tion in  a  letter  in  which  he  tells  his  wife  that  he 
is  about  to  visit  Paris.  "  I  shall  stay,"  he  says, 
"  with  Hippolyte,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  inter- 
fere in  any  way  with  your  liberty,  or  to  have  any 
restrictions  imposed  upon  my  own — which  seems 
a  fair  arrangement." 

So  they  agreed  to  differ,  and  corresponded 
amicably,  about  Maurice's  knickerbockers  and 
similar  matters,  and  met  from  time  to  time  with- 
out violating  the  truce  or  seeking  to  upset  the 
modus  vivendi  that  they  had  agreed  upon.  George 
Sand  wrote  to  her  husband  about  the  plays  she 
saw  and  the  editors  she  interviewed,  and  expressed 
concern  for  his  health  when  he  was  summoned  to 
sit  on  a  jury  in  a  town  in  which  cholera  was  raging. 
For  the  rest,  she  regarded  him  as  a  man  like 
another,  to  be  observed  and  put  into  a  book.  He 
evidently  sat  unconsciously  as  the  model  for  the 
disagreeable  husband  in  Indiana.  Her  heart — 
which  it  had  been  agreed  should  be  her  own — was 
in  the  Latin  Quarter,  with  her  student-lover,  Jules 
Sandeau.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  believed 
that  she  knew  what  love  really  was.  In  one 
of  her  letters  we  find  her  distinguishing  between 
love  and  passion  :  "  Love  seeks  to  give,  whereas 
passion  only  seeks  to  take."  She  had  given  herself 
to  Jules  Sandeau — as  she  believed,  for  ever. 

In  this  as  in  all  her  love  affairs,  she  had  a  con- 
fidant ;  and  the  confidant,  as  always,  was  a  man. 
She  told  the  whole  story  of  her  love  at  the  time, 

43 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

in  a  series  of  letters  to  Emile  Regnault,  printed  in 
the  Figaro  by  M.  Amic  in  1896.  It  was  to 
Regnault  that  she  confided  her  habit  of  looking 
on  hat-stands  for  Jules  Sandeau's  red-corded  hat, 
the  cords  on  the  hats  of  her  other  friends  and 
acquaintances  being  blue ;  and  she  also  told  him 
in  what  circumstances  Jules  Sandeau  declared  his 
love,  and  so  made  her  aware  of  hers. 

"  I  don't  know  exactly  how  it  happened.  A 
quarter  of  an  hour  previously  I  had  been  alone, 
sitting  on  the  steps  of  the  stone  staircase,  with  a 
book  in  my  hands  which  only  my  eyes  were 
reading.  My  mind  was  absorbed  by  a  single 
thought,  intensely  delightful,  but  mysterious  and 
vague.  I  seemed  to  see  Jules,  and  to  hear  his 
voice  ;  I  was  thinking  over  everything  that  I  had 
heard  said  about  him,  and  everything  that  I  had 
guessed  about  him  ;  and  my  heart  was  consumed 
with  love  for  him,  while  to  my  mind  there  came 
no  thought  whether  of  yielding  or  of  resistance. 
The  future?  The  morrow?  I  knew  nothing 
about  that.  He  had  arrived  on  the  previous 
evening,  and  my  whole  life  was  concentrated  upon 
that  day.  All  of  a  sudden  a  voice  sounds  in  my 
ear,  and  makes  me  tremble  from  head  to  foot.  I 
turned  round,  and  there  he  was.  I  was  not  in 
the  least  expecting  him.  But  what  is  all  this  that  I 
am  telling  you  ?  Jules,  I  doubt  not,  has  described 
the  scene  to  you  a  hundred  times  in  its  smallest 
details.  Lovers  are  so  tiresome,  aren't  they  ?  " 

44 


Confessions 

It  was  a  strange  confidence  truly  for  a  woman 
to  make  to  a  man  ;  but  there  were  stranger  con- 
fidences to  follow.  The  veil  of  the  alcove  is 
lifted ;  and  we  read  of  George  Sand's  motherly 
anxieties  for  the  well-being  of  a  too  ardent  lover. 

"  You  must  understand,  my  dear  Emile,  that 
my  life  is  very  closely  bound  up  with  that  of  Jules, 
and  that  when  he  suffers,  however  little,  I,  in 
sympathy,  suffer  much.  You  still  have  some 
influence  over  him,  whereas  I  have  none.  I  tire 
him,  and  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  tell  him  that  I 
am  ill,  in  order  to  persuade  him  to  take  care  of 
himself.  That  remedy  would  be  worse  than  the 
disease.  Look  at  his  letter  to  me,  and  look  at  my 
reply.  I  am  very  guilty  towards  him ;  I  have 
been  very  cruel.  I  reproached  him  for  his  idle- 
ness when  he  was  well ;  I  reproach  him  for 
his  illness  now  that  he  is  ill.  I  tire  him,  I  irritate 
him,  and  I  annoy  him.  I  feel  it,  and  I  am  very 
unhappy  about  it.  He  will  not  admit  it,  but  he 
finds  me  an  oppressive  burden." 

An  oppressive  burden  in  what  sense  ?  In  a 
very  literal  sense,  as  the  next  letter  explains. 

"  One  feels  horribly  uneasy,  my  friend, — one 
feels  a  frightful  remorse, — when  one  sees  the  being 
to  whom  one  would  gladly  give  one's  life  dying  in 
one's  arms  ;  when  one  sees  him  growing  thin  and 
exhausted — pining  away  from  day  to  day — and 

45 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

feels  that  one  is  killing  him,  that  one's  caresses 
are  a  poison,  and  one's  love  is  a  consuming  fire  : 
a  fire  that  devours  and  destroys,  leaving  nothing 
but  ashes  behind.  It  is  an  appalling  thought ; 
and  Jules  will  not  understand  it.  He  laughs  at 
it.  He  despises  it  as  a  child's  nightmare  ;  and 
when,  in  the  midst  of  his  transports  of  delight, 
the  idea  comes  to  me  and  freezes  my  blood,  he 
tells  me  that  that  is  the  death  that  he  would  like 
to  die.  At  such  moments  he  promises  whatever 
I  bid  him  promise.  He  makes  the  promise  as  he 
falls  asleep,  exhausted  with  fatigue,  and  when  he 
wakes  up  in  the  morning  he  has  forgotten  all 
about  it.  A  hundred  times  during  the  past  three 
months,  I  have  held  him  almost  fainting  in  my 
arms,  and  have  resisted  him.  Then  I  yielded  to 
my  fears  in  the  hope  of  curing  him.  I  made  the 
sacrifice  of  my  will — my  will  which,  after  all,  is  a 
thing  of  some  account — and  to-day  I  lament 
having  done  him  more  harm  by  devotion  than  by 
my  resistance.  I  am  killing  him.  The  pleasures 
which  I  give  him  he  buys  at  the  cost  of  his  life. 
I  am  his  Peau  de  Chagrin." 

The  next  letter  shows  that  George  Sand  was 
giving  Jules  Sandeau  not  only  herself  but  her 
money.  Her  rule  is  proved  by  the  exception  to 
it  which  she  notes.  She  is  at  Nohant,  this  time, 
and  he  is  in  Paris.  She  fears  that  he  has  not 
enough  to  eat.  He  has  a  delicate  stomach  ;  and 
it  may  be  that  he  is  "  breakfasting  off  Roquefort 

46 


Disillusion  and  Rupture 

cheese."  And  then :  "I  haven't  been  able  to 
send  him  any  money  this  month,  as  I  have  had 
to  devote  my  month's  allowance  to  the  payment 
of  a  debt." 

Such  was  the  romance ;  and  George  Sand 
indulged  the  dream  that  it  would  last  for  ever. 
But  such  passionate  romances  seldom  last ;  and  the 
end  of  this  one  came  with  dramatic  suddenness. 

George  Sand  set  out  one  day  from  Nohant  to 
Paris  without  announcing  her  arrival,  meaning  to 
give  her  lover  the  pleasure  of  a  surprise.  She  sur- 
prised him  indeed — but  not  alone.  With  him — 
and  not  only  with  him  but  actually  in  his  arms 
— was  a  young  woman  whom  the  chroniclers 
describe  as  "  une  blanchisseuse  quelconque" 

No  doubt  it  was  an  infidelity  of  the  senses 
rather  than  the  heart :  no  deliberate  betrayal,  but 
rather  the  temporary  aberration  of  a  young  man 
to  whose  passionate  temperament  she  had  just 
borne  such  eloquent  witness.  If  only  she  had  not 
left  him  for  so  long !  If  only  he  had  dared  to 
hope  that  she  would  come  again  so  soon  !  Those 
are  the  excuses  which  one  pictures  him  preferring. 
But,  if  he  did  prefer  them,  it  was  in  vain.  The 
offence  was  not  of  the  kind  that  could  be  pardoned  ; 
and  Emile  Regnault  was  presently  informed  of  the 
rupture. 

"  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  have  just  written  to 
M,  Desgranges  to  give  notice  to  terminate  the 

47 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

tenancy  of  Jules'  apartment,  and  to  ask  him  for  a 
receipt  for  the  rent  due,  which  I  will  pay.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  taking  the  rest  of  my  furniture  to  my 
own  rooms.  I  will  make  a  parcel  of  the  few 
things  which  Jules  has  left  behind  him  in  the 
drawers,  and  have  them  sent  to  you ;  for  I  desire 
to  have  no  interview,  and  no  communication, 
with  him  on  his  return,  which,  as  I  gather  from 
the  last  words  of  his  letter  to  you,  which  you 
showed  to  me,  is  likely  to,  or  at  any  rate  may, 
take  place  at  an  early  date.  I  have  been  too 
deeply  wounded  by  the  discoveries  which  I  have 
made  about  his  conduct  to  preserve  for  him  any 
other  sentiment  than  an  affectionate  compassion. 
Do  all  that  is  necessary  to  make  him  understand 
that  nothing  can  reunite  us  in  the  future.  If  that 
is  unnecessary — if  Jules,  that  is  to  say,  already 
understands  the  situation — spare  him  the  pain  of 
being  told  that  he  has  lost  even  my  esteem.  I 
doubt  not  that  he  has  lost  his  own,  and  that  is 
sufficient  punishment  for  him." 

So  the  passionate  lovers  parted,  and  pursued 
thenceforward  separate  roads  to  fame.  Jules 
Sandeau  became  an  Academician  —  the  first 
novelist  to  whom  the  Academy  opened  its  doors. 
It  is  said  that,  in  that  capacity,  he  voted  against  a 
proposal  to  award  George  Sand  a  literary  prize.1 

1  M.  de  Spoelberch  de  Lovenjoul,  in  La  veritable  Histoire  de  "  Elle 
et  Lut"  corrects  this  story,  and  shows  that  Sandeau  was  absent, 
through  indisposition,  from  the  session  at  which  the  vote  was  taken. 

48 


An  Apologue 

It  is  also  said  that,  until  the  end  of  his  days,  the 
mention  of  her  name  always  brought  tears  to 
his  eyes.  But  he  had  other  mistresses — George 
Sand's  friend  Marie  Dorval,  the  actress,  among 
the  number — so  that  it  is  difficult  to  be  sure. 
And,  at  any  rate,  he  uttered  one  witticism  at  her 
expense  that  has  lived.  "  My  heart  is  a  cemetery," 
George  Sand  said  pathetically,  in  her  later  years  ; 
and  the  saying  was  repeated  to  Jules  Sandeau. 
"  It  is  a  necropolis,"  was  his  comment. 

George  Sand,  on  her  part,  as  we  shall  see, 
could  forget,  if  she  could  not  forgive ;  but  she 
would  not  have  been  George  Sand  if  she  had  not 
first  published  her  emotions  to  the  world.  Her 
regrets,  such  as  they  were,  may  be  read  in  the 
Lettres  dun  Voyageur. 

"  Growing  old  matters  little  to  me ;  but  it 
matters  much  to  me  that  I  should  not  grow  old  in 
solitude.  Only  I  have  not  met  the  human  being 
in  whose  company  I  could  live  and  die ;  or,  if  I 
have  met  him,  I  have  not  been  able  to  keep  him. 
Listen  to  a  story  and  cry  over  it.  Once  upon  a 
time  there  was  a  worthy  artist  called  Watelet,  the 
best  etcher  of  his  time.  He  loved  Marguerite 
Lecomte,  and  taught  her  to  etch  as  well  as  he  did. 
She  left  her  husband,  her  wealth,  and  her  country, 
to  live  with  Watelet.  .  .  .  The  world  cursed  them, 
and  then,  as  they  were  poor  and  modest,  the 
world  forgot  them.  Forty  years  later  there  was 
discovered,  in  a  little  house  in  the  suburbs  of 
D  49 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Paris,  called  Moulin- Joli,  an  old  man  who  etched 
on  copperplate,  together  with  an  old  woman, 
whom  he  called  his  '  meuniere?  who  sat  at  the 
same  table  with  him,  and  worked  at  the  same  task. 
The  first  idle  loafer  who  discovered  this  marvel 
told  the  others  about  it,  and  the  world  of  fashion 
crowded  to  Moulin-Joli,  crowded  to  see  the 
phenomenon :  a  love  that  had  lasted  for  forty 
years ;  a  labour  that  had  always  been  assiduous 
and  had  always  given  delight ;  two  twin  talents, 
Philemon  and  Baucis,  contemporaries  of  Mesdames 
de  Pompadour  and  Du  Barry.  That  seemed  an 
epoch-making  spectacle ;  and  the  marvellous 
couple  were  surrounded  by  friends,  flatterers,  and 
admirers.  Fortunately  they  died  of  old  age  a  few 
days  afterwards ;  otherwise  the  incursion  of  the 
world  would  have  spoilt  the  picture.  The  last 
picture  which  they  engraved  was  of  Marguerite's 
house,  and  had  the  motto — 

'  Cur  valle  permutem  Sabina 
Divitias  operosiores  ? ' 

"  I  have  that  picture  in  my  room.  It  hangs 
above  a  portrait  of  some  person  whom  none  of  us 
here  know.  For  a  whole  year  he  who  bequeathed 
me  that  portrait  used  to  sit  with  me  every  even- 
ing at  a  little  table,  engaged  at  the  same  work  as 
myself.  In  the  mornings  we  used  to  consult  to- 
gether about  our  tasks,  and  in  the  evenings  we 
sat  at  the  same  little  table  and  supped  together, 
talking  the  while  of  our  art,  our  sentiments,  and 

50 


An  Anti-climax 

our  future.     The  future  did  not  keep  its  promises 
to  us.     Pray  for  me,  O  Marguerite  Lecomte ! " l 

This,  it  is  clear,  is  sentimentalism  rather  than 
sorrow.  If  George  Sand's  heart  was-  a  cemetery, 
she  was  already  beginning  to  find  satisfaction  in 
her  meditations  among  the  tombs.  If  the  memory 
remained,  it  lay  at  the  bottom  of  a  heap  of 
memories  ;  and  there  is  a  picture  belonging  to  a 
somewhat  later  date  in  which  we  see  recollection 
still  more  dim,  if  not  altogether  extinct.  It  is 
M.  Jules  Claretie  who  tells  the  story  : — 

"One  evening,  in  the  editorial  office  of  the 
Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  a  bald  little  man,  of 
military  bearing  and  pensive  manner,  collided  in 
the  doorway  with  a  fat  lady  with  the  dark  com- 
plexion of  a  gipsy,  and  apologised  to  her  politely. 

"  *  I  beg  your  pardon,  madame.' 

"  *  I  beg  yours.' 

"  And  then,  when  Sandeau  had  taken  his  seat — 

"  '  Who  is  that  lady  ? '  he  asked. 

"'What?'  was  the  answer.  '  It  is  you  who 
ask  that  question  !  Why,  that  is  George  Sand ! ' ' 

And  thus,  just  as  in  one  of  Maupassant's  short 
stories,  the  curtain  falls  upon  an  anti-climax. 

1  Dr.  George  Brandes  has  maintained  that  the  reference  is  to 
George  Sand's  relations,  not  with  Sandeau,  but  with  Musset.  The 
view  presented  here  is  that  taken  in  the  Grand  Dictionnaire 
Larousse. 


CHAPTER   VI 

Lost  illusions — Friendship  with  Marie  Dorval — Sainte-Beuve 
introduces  Prosper  Merimee — George  Sand  becomes  his 
mistress  for  a  week — Their  parting  and  subsequent  meeting. 

ILLUSIONS  were  now  vanishing.  The  first  illu- 
sion had  gone  when  AureUien  de  Seze  ceased  to  be 
satisfied  with  a  love  that  was  merely  mystical  and 
chaste ;  the  second  when  Jules  Sandeau  preferred 
— albeit  only  for  a  moment — the  embraces  of  his 
"  blanchisseuse  quelconque" 

It  is  our  English  convention  not  to  take 
seriously  the  sufferings  of  lovers  whose  union  has 
not  been  blessed  by  the  Church — or  at  least 
sanctioned  by  the  Registrar :  we  prefer  to  de- 
nounce or  to  deride.  It  is  the  French  convention 
to  regard  these  tragedies  as  the  most  poignant  of 
all.  But  the  truth  is  that  love  is  love,  and  is  to 
be  taken  seriously — as  by  the  lovers  it  always  is 
taken  seriously — in  proportion  not  to  its  sanction 
but  to  its  sincerity.  George  Sand,  when  Jules 
Sandeau  deceived  her,  felt  herself,  for  the  moment, 
emotionally  bankrupt.  "  And  I  had  for  my  most 
intimate  friend,"  she  adds,  in  explanation  of  her 
further  conduct,  "a  woman  who  put  no  bridle  on 
her  passions." 

The  friend  was  Marie  Dorval,  the  actress 

52 


Marie  Dorval 

already  mentioned.  George  Sand  had  written 
her  a  letter  of  homage,  soliciting  her  acquaintance ; 
she  had  responded  with  enthusiasm ;  the  two 
women  had  formed  an  attachment.  And  Marie 
Dorval  was  no  exception  to  the  rule  that  the 
theatre  is  a  bad  school  of  morals.  She  was  the 
more  dangerous  as  a  friend — the  more  likely  to  be 
imitated  as  a  model — because  she  was  no 
mercenary  mistress,  but  the  child  of  impulse  and 
caprice.  In  the  years  to  come,  she  was  not  only 
to  be  the  mistress  of  Jules  Sandeau,  but  to  break 
the  nobler  heart  of  Alfred  de  Vigny.  "  On  the 
bosom  of  what  a  Magdalen  fall  the  tears  of  this 
Christ !  "  was  to  be  the  cynic's  comment  upon  that 
singular  passion.  A  strange  counsellor  truly  for  a 
distinguished  woman  of  letters ;  and  one  can 
imagine  what  her  counsel  would  have  been  :  to 
make  haste  to  love  again — recklessly,  and  without 
discrimination. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  the  advice  was  given  ; 
and  we  know  that  it  was  taken.  To  friends  in  the 
country  George  Sand  wrote  that,  in  the  daytime, 
she  was  besieged  by  visitors,  and  that  in  the  even- 
ings she  shut  herself  up  "  with  my  pens  and  my 
ink,  Solange,  my  piano,  and  my  fire."  It  was 
a  part  of  the  truth — for  she  was  writing(  Ldlia — 
but  not  the  whole  of  it.  The  friends  who  besieged 
her,  and  who,  she  said,  did  not  amuse  her,  included 
men  who  were  anxious  to  make  love,  and  men 
who  thought  to  do  an  act  of  kindness  in  intro- 
ducing lovers.  She  knew,  of  course,  all  the 

53 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

members  of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  group. 
Among  them  was  Sainte-Beuve,  the  critic,  who 
introduced  Prosper  Merimee,  the  novelist.  "  She 
gave  herself  to  Merimde,"  says  her  biographer, 
Madame  Kar6nine,  "  without  knowing  exactly 
why." 

It  was  a  brief  episode  concerning  which  some 
strange  and  not  specially  seemly  anecdotes  have 
been  related.  Merimee  himself  spoke  of  the 
affair  as  a  young  man's  "  adventure."  The  story 
also  went  the  rounds  that  Sainte-Beuve,  distressed 
to  see  George  Sand  lonely  and  forsaken,  and 
aspiring  to  fill  the  place  in  her  life  which  God, 
according  to  the  cynic,  fills  in  her  novels,  "gave" 
Merime'e  to  her,  and  that  she  wrote  to  him  on  the 
following  morning  requesting  him  to  take  back 
his  gift.  She  herself,  in  a  letter  to  Sainte-Beuve, 
declared  that  the  intimacy  lasted  a  whole  week  ; 
and  she,  if  anyone,  was  in  a  position  to  know. 
But  the  point  is  not  worth  arguing.  The  three 
versions  have  their  common  denominator  in  the 
fact  that  George  Sand  and  Prosper  Merime'e 
quickly  discovered  that  they  did  not  suit  each 
other.  "All  that  is  certain,"  says  M.  Augustin 
Filon,  in  his  Life  of  Merime'e,  "is  that  he  refused 
to  be  led  along  the  road  that  Musset  followed, 
and  that  he  was  wise." 

He  was  a  little  older  than  George  Sand  in 
point  of  years — a  great  deal  older  in  knowledge 
of  the  world ;  and  he  was  the  type  of  man  who 
has  a  special  fascination  for  a  certain  type  of 

54 


Prosper  Merimee 

woman.  His  distinction  was  his  reserve — worn 
like  a  mask  which  he  seemed  always  on  the  point 
of  removing.  It  was  permissible  to  credit  him 
with  many  adorable  qualities  which  he  did  not 
actually  display.  Apparently  he  was  an  iceberg  ; 
but  it  was  possible  to  believe  that  the  iceberg  was 
a  volcano  in  disguise.  So  George  Sand,  who  had 
resisted  Sandeau  before  yielding  to  him,  yielded 
to  Merime'e  without  resistance ;  and,  after  it  was 
all  over,  she  wrote  to  Sainte-Beuve  to  tell  him 
how  it  had  happened,  and  why. 

She  felt  herself  growing  old,  she  said,  and  yet, 
in  some  ways,  she  was  still  young.  She  suffered, 
she  despaired,  and  she  was  bored.  She  was 
ready  even  to  drown  herself,  believing  that  life 
had  no  longer  any  happiness — or  even  any 
pleasures — to  offer  her.  And  then — 

"  On  one  of  my  days  of  ennui  and  desperation, 
I  met  a  man  who  was  free  from  all  doubts  and 
questionings — a  calm  and  a  strong  man — who 
understood  nothing  of  my  nature,  and  only 
laughed  at  my  troubles.  The  force  of  his 
character  completely  fascinated  me,  and  for  a 
week  I  believed  that  I  had  acquired  the  secret  of 
happiness — that  he  would  teach  it  to  me,  and 
that  his  scornful  disdain  would  heal  me  of  my 
childish  susceptibilities.  I  believed  that  he  had 
suffered  as  I  had  suffered,  and  made  himself 
master  of  his  sensibilities.  .  .  . 

"  This  man,  who  would  only  be  my  lover  on 

55 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

one  condition,  and  who  was  able  to  make  me 
desire  his  love,  persuaded  me  that  there  might 
still  exist  for  me  a  kind  of  love  endurable  to  the 
senses  and  intoxicating  to  the  soul.  I  had 
thought  so  myself  once  .  .  .  and  I  was  suffering 
from  that  romantic  restlessness  and  weariness 
which  make  one  giddy,  and  cause  one  to  question 
all  one's  negations,  and  fall  into  fresh  errors  far 
graver  than  those  one  has  foresworn.  So,  after 
having  thought  that  years  of  intimacy  could  not 
link  my  existence  to  another's,  I  concluded  that 
a  fascination  which  had  only  lasted  a  few  days 
might  determine  the  course  of  my  life.  And,  in 
the  end,  I  did,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  what  a  girl  of 
fifteen  would  have  known  better  than  to  do. 
Courage !  The  rest  of  the  story  is  odious  to 
relate  ;  but  why  should  1  fear  to  be  ridiculous,  if 
I  have  not  been  guilty  ? 

"  The  experiment  failed  completely.  I  shed 
tears  of  pain,  disgust,  and  discouragement. 
Instead  of  an  affection  that  could  pity  me  and 
relieve  me  of  my  distress,  I  found  only  a  bitter 
and  mocking  frivolity.  That  is  all." 

That  is  the  end  of  the  confession ;  and  the 
story  has  hardly  any  sequel.  The  lives  of  these 
lovers  of  a  week  were  to  run  on  very  different 
lines.  While  George  Sand  remained  a  Bohemian, 
Merime'e  was  to  become  a  public  official  and  a 
courtier  —  Inspector  of  Historical  Monuments, 
and  Napoleon's  Master  of  the  Revels  at  Com- 

56 


Gustave  Planche 

piegne.  He  was  to  have  other  love  affairs,  of 
which  one  at  least  is  famous — too  proud  to  marry 
poor  Jenny  Dacquin,  the  provincial  notary's 
daughter,  but  not  too  proud  to  dally  with  her 
interminably,  always  seeming  about  to  depart  from 
his  reserve,  and  never  quite  departing  from  it. 
But  he  and  George  Sand  were  only  to  meet  once 
more — at  a  dinner  party  given  in  Paris  by  Lord 
Hough  ton  in  1848 — when,  Merime'e  says,  they 
stared  at  each  other  a  good  deal,  but  did  not 
speak.  For  the  rest,  he  voted,  with  the  minority, 
that  she  should  have  the  Academy  Prize  of 
20,000  francs,  and  even  canvassed  Jules  Sandeau 
on  her  behalf. 

But  now  another  illusion  was  gone ;  and  the 
rejected  heart  was  once  more  ready  to  be  caught 
on  the  rebound.  In  Sainte-Beuve's  Memoirs 
there  is  a  statement  that  Gustave  Planche — the 
dramatic  critic  of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  whom 
Victor  Hugo  described  as  "  a  fungus  not  afraid  of 
being  bitten  because  it  knows  that  it  is  poisonous," 
—was,  for  a  time,  her  lover ;  but,  in  one  of  her 
own  letters  to  the  critic,  the  allegation  is  denied. 
"He  is  not  my  lover,"  she  writes,  "and  he  never 
will  be  ; "  and  she  was  ordinarily  so  frank  in  her 
confessions  that  we  need  make  no  difficulty  about 
believing  her. 

Moreover,  a  greater  than  Gustave  Planche  was 
about  to  enter  into  her  life.  She  was  on  the 
point  of  meeting  Alfred  de  Musset. 


57 


CHAPTER  VII 

Alfred  de  Musset — His  family  and  early  associations — His  rela- 
tions with  the  "Cenacle" —  Sainte-Beuve  introduces  him  to 
George  Sand — The  exchange  of  compliments  leads  to  love — 
Bohemian  life  together  in  George  Sand's  apartment  —  A 
honeymoon  in  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau — The  proposal  to 
travel  together  to  Venice — Musset's  mother  objects — George 
Sand  calls  on  her  and  persuades  her  to  consent — The  de- 
parture "  amid  circumstances  of  evil  omen." 

ALFRED  DE  MUSSET  was  not,  like  George  Sand, 
of  miscellaneous  lineage.  His  family  was  noble 
— ancien  regime  to  the  finger-tips ;  and  many 
members  of  it  had  dallied  in  a  dignified  way  with 
literature.  His  father,  M.  de  Musset- Pathay, 
had  written  several  books,  including  what  was 
then  the  standard  Life  of  Rousseau,  whose 
character  he  defended  against  the  assaults  of 
Grimm.  His  great-uncle,  the  Marquis  de  Musset, 
was  the  author  of  a  novel,  announced  in  the 
preface  as  "  dictated  by  the  love  of  virtue."  A 
maternal  grandfather,  M.  Guyot-Desherbiers,  had 
published  a  humanitarian  poem  on  cats. 

He  was  a  clever  boy,  nervous  and  delicate ; 
according  to  some  accounts  he  was  epileptic,  but 
that  statement  has  been  disputed.  At  all  events, 
he  was  impatient  and  precocious — already  a  poet 
to  be  taken  seriously  at  the  age  of  seventeen, 

58 


"Maladie  du  Siecle" 

afflicted  by  the  maladie  du  siecle.  One  may 
smile,  remembering  what  Shakespeare  says  about 
the  young  men  who  are  "sad  as  night  only  for 
wantonness "  ;  but  the  disease  was  real  enough. 
It  was,  so  to  say,  the  mental  epidemic  of  the 
period.  The  sanest  critics  have  traced  its  causes 
and  chronicled  its  symptoms.  France  had  been 
bled  almost  to  death  by  the  slaughter  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  and  the  starved  nerves  of  a 
whole  nation  had  been  overstrained.  There 
followed  reaction,  breakdown,  hysteria ;  and 
the  hysteria  was  aggravated  by  the  French 
system  of  education.  The  Lyce*e  was  a  forcing- 
house  ;  and  there  were  no  outdoor  games  to 
help  youth  to  preserve  its  emotional  and  mental 
balance.  The  result  was  pessimism,  and  the 
attempt  to  make  pessimism  tolerable  by  dissipa- 
tion. Since  Musset's  testimony  might  be  pre- 
judiced, let  Maxime  Du  Camp  be  our  witness. 

"The  literary  and  artistic  generation,"  he 
writes,  "which  preceded  me — the  generation  to 
which  I  belonged — passed  a  youth  of  lamentable 
melancholy  :  a  melancholy  which  had  no  cause 
and  no  immediate  motive,  but  was  inherent  in 
the  individual  and  the  age."  Young  men,  he 
adds,  were  haunted  by  the  idea  of  suicide.  "It 
was  not  merely,  as  might  be  supposed,  a  fashion. 
It  was  a  kind  of  general  feeling  of  feebleness 
which  saddened  the  heart,  darkened  the  mind, 
and  caused  men  to  look  upon  death  as  a  deliver- 
ance." And  when  men  did  not  seek  the  escape 

59 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

from  life  in  death,  they  turned  to  anodynes — to 
literature,  and  also  to  drunkenness  and  free  love. 
To  Alfred  de  Musset  each  of  the  three  anodynes 
was  to  make  its  appeal  in  turn. 

Those  were  the  days  of  the  "  Cenacle  "  :  those 
gatherings  of  young  poets  hardly  out  of  their 
teens,  who  had  Victor  Hugo  for  their  prophet 
and  Sainte-Beuve  for  their  trumpeter.  Alfred 
de  Musset,  the  youngest  of  them  all,  was 
introduced  to  the  group  by  Hugo's  brother-in- 
law,  Paul  Foucher,  who  had  been  at  school  with 
him.  "  I  also  am  a  poet,"  he  confided  to  the 
companion  with  whom  he  walked  home  after  he 
had,  for  the  first  time,  heard  his  elders  recite 
their  compositions ;  and  presently  he  too  recited, 
and  was  acclaimed  the  "  sublime  child "  of  the 
Romantic  company.  Lamartine  remarked  on  his 
eyes,  "dreamy  rather  than  dazzling,"  and  on  his 
"modest  silence  in  the  confused  tumult  of  jabber- 
ing women  and  poets."  Victor  Hugo  speaks  of 
"his  firm  clear  glance,  his  dilated  nostrils,  his 
vermilion  lips  half  open." 

It  would  seem  that  he  was  rather  in  the  group 
than  of  it.  The  others  were  the  professionals ; 
he  was  the  amateur.  They  were  the  Bohemians  ; 
he  was  the  fine  gentleman — the  "  dandy  "  some  of 
them  said — who  descended  into  Bohemia  at  his 
hours.  He  never  became  the  typical  Romantic 
writer,  having  his  own  traditions,  his  own  point 
of  view.  But  the  new  associations  at  least  made 
a  bourgeois  profession  impossible  for  him.  For  a 

60 


Alfred  de  Musset 

little  while  he  studied  law,  and  then,  for  a  little 
while,  he  pretended  to  study  medicine  ;  but 
medicine  disgusted  and  law  bored  him.  He 
"  cut  "  his  lectures,  and  spent  his  time  on  the 
boulevards  ;  but,  instead  of  making  literature  his 
excuse,  he  justified  himself  with  a  cynicism.  Man 
was  such  a  poor  insignificant  creature,  he  told 
his  puzzled  family,  that  it  was  absurd  to  take 
pains  to  fashion  himself  into  "a  particular  kind  of 


man." 


That  was  his  position  —  and  his  age  was  only 
twenty-two  —  when  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
George  Sand,  to  whom  he  was  introduced  by  her 
"confessor,"  Sainte-Beuve. 

Perhaps  Sainte-Beuve  was  anxious  to  make 
amends  for  his  mistake  in  introducing  Merime'e. 
At  all  events,  we  find  him  pressing  the  introduction, 
and  George  Sand  only  accepting  it  with  reluctance. 
She  had  had  enough,  she  said  —  and  perhaps 
believed  —  of  love.  It  no  more  became  her  than 
roses  became  a  brow  of  sixty  winters.  "  For  the 
last  three  months  it  has  not  tempted  me  in  the 
least."  Moreover,  if  Sainte-Beuve  insisted  upon 
introducing  somebody,  there  were  other  men 
whom  she  was  more  anxious  to  meet. 

"  After  due  reflection,  I  would  rather  that  you 
didn't  bring  Alfred  de  Musset  to  see  me.  He  is 
too  much  of  a  dandy  ;  we  shouldn't  suit  each 
other  :  I  was  rather  curious  about  him  than 
interested.  It  is  imprudent  to  gratify  all  one's 

61 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

curiosities,  and  better  to  follow  the  guidance  of 
one's  sympathies.  Instead  of  him,  I  should  like 
you  to  bring  Dumas,  in  whose  art  I  find  soul  as 
well  as  talent.  He  has  said  that  he  would  like 
to  meet  me — you  have  only  to  give  him  my 
message." 

One  is  amused  at  the  preference  thus  expressed, 
and  tries  to  picture  the  liaison  that  might  have 
resulted.  Alexandre  Dumas  was  a  man  who 
liked  to  fill  his  house  with  mistresses,  but  refused 
to  take  any  of  them  seriously,  first  treating  them 
like  spoiled  children  and  then  like  naughty 
children.  In  his  intellectual  life  they  had  no  part 
or  lot.  He  tolerated  them  until  he  quarrelled 
with  them,  submitting  in  patience  to  be  plundered  ; 
but,  in  the  end,  he  always  flew  into  a  volcanic 
passion,  and  bade  them,  at  a  few  minutes'  notice, 
begone  and  take  their  bedroom  furniture  with 
them.  There  would  indeed  have  been  a  strange 
conflict  between  two  strong  natures  if  he  and 
George  Sand  had  ever  loved. 

The  speculation  is  idle,  however,  since  it  was 
not  Dumas  but  Musset  who  was  introduced.  The 
exact  date  of  the  first  meeting  cannot  be  fixed ; 1 
but  Musset  and  George  Sand  sat  next  each  other 
at  a  dinner  given  to  the  contributors  to  the 

1  The  story  is  told— Dr.  Brandes  repeats  it— that  Buloz  deliber- 
ately brought  them  together  in  the  confident  expectation  that  they 
would  fall  in  love  and  would  quarrel,  and  that  their  disputes  would 
"  make  copy  "  for  the  Revue.  Whether  the  story  be  true  or  not,  it 
does  not  seem  to  rest  upon  very  solid  evidence. 

62 


Progress  towards  Intimacy 

Revue  des  deux  Mondes  in  the  late  spring  or 
early  summer  of  1833.  "  She  asked  him  to  call," 
says  Paul  de  Musset  in  his  Life  of  his  brother. 
"He  called  two  or  three  times,  at  intervals  of  a 
week,  and,  after  that,  he  was  always  with  her." 

They  began,  of  course,  with  literary  compli- 
ments. Musset  wrote  some  verses  in  praise  of 
Indiana,  and  sent  them  to  the  author.  In 
the  covering  letter,  he  proposed  to  escort  her  to 
the  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  which  she  had  ex- 
pressed the  desire  to  climb.  That  excursion 
does  not  seem  to  have  taken  place ;  but  Musset 
was  given  an  early  copy — or  perhaps  the  proofs 
— of  Le'lia,  and  though  his  letter  of  acknow- 
ledgment is  not  a  love  letter,  it  indicates  that 
progress  towards  intimacy  is  being  made.  "  A 
sea  rolls  between  us,"  says  the  young  man.  He 
must  not  ask  for  love,  and  friendship  is  "too 
moral "  for  him.  But  may  he  not  be  "a  kind 
of  comrade  without  importance  and  without  rights 
—consequently  without  jealousies  and  without 
quarrels,  capable  of  smoking  your  tobacco,  and 
catching  cold  with  you  while  philosophising  under 
the  shadows  of  all  the  chestnut  trees  of  modern 
Europe  ?" 

So  far,  it  is  only  the  tone  of  badinage ;  and  we 
find  the  same  tone  in  the  dedication  which  George 
Sand  wrote  in  the  presentation  copy  of  Ltlia 
which  she  sent  to  him.  In  the  first  volume  she 
wrote  :  "  To  my  naughty  boy,  Alfred ! — GEORGE." 
In  the  second  the  inscription  was :  "  To  M.  le 

63 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Vicomte  Alfred  de  Musset,  with  the  respectful 
homage  of  his  devoted  servant,  George  Sand." 
And,  after  that,  the  situation  developed  rapidly. 
Alfred  de  Musset  made  a  declaration  of  love 
in  a  letter,  and  George  Sand  hesitated.  He 
made  a  second,  and  more  passionate  declara- 
tion :  "  Pity  me,  but  do  not  despise  me.  If  my 
name  is  written  in  a  corner  of  your  heart,  do  not 
efface  the  impression,  however  faint  and  feeble 
it  may  be.  ...  There  are  days  when  I  could 
kill  myself.  I  weep  instead,  or  laugh — but 
I  do  not  laugh  to-day.  Good-bye,  George.  I 
love  you  with  the  love  of  a  little  child."  To 
this  appeal  George  Sand  yielded,  and  the  poet 
burst  into  song  : — 

"  Te  voila  revenu  dans  mes  nuits  e'toile'es, 
Bel  ange  aux  yeux  d'azur,  aux  paupieres  voices, 
Amour,  mon  bien  supreme  et  que  j'avais  perdu ! 
J'ai  cru  pendant  trois  ans  te  vaincre  et  te  maudire, 
Et  toi,  les  yeux  en  pleurs,  avec  ton  doux  sourire, 
Au  chevet  de  mon  lit  te  voila  revenu. 

Eh  bien  !  deux  mots  de  toi  m'ont  fait  le  roi  du  monde. 
Mets  la  main  sur  mon  cceur,  la  blessure  est  profonde ; 
Elargis-la,  bel  ange,  et  qu'il  en  soit  brise' ! 
Jamais  amant  aime,  mourant  pour  sa  maitresse, 
N'a,  dans  les  yeux  plus  noirs,  bu  la  celeste  ivresse, 
Nul,  sur  un  plus  beau  front  ne  t'a  jamais  baise." 

A  period  of  happiness,  and  of  Bohemian  merri- 
ment, succeeded.  Nominally  Alfred  de  Musset 
was  still  living  at  home  with  his  mother,  his 
brother  Paul,  and  his  sister  Herminie,  afterwards 
Madame  Lardin  de  Musset ;  but  he  spent  most 

64 


A  Bohemian  Salon 

of  his  time  as  George  Sand's  guest,  and  only 
came  home  occasionally.  There  was  no  secret 
as  to  the  nature  of  their  relations.  They  enter- 
tained their  Bohemian  friends.  Buloz,  Gustave 
Planche,1  Jules  Boucoiran,  and  Papet  were  often 
there.  Paul  de  Musset  was  in  the  habit  of  look- 
ing in  to  see  how  the  lovers  were  getting  on. 
One  hears  of  supper  parties,  and  practical  jokes. 
A  comedian  and  conjurer  was  introduced  as  a 
distinguished  European  diplomatist,  and  imposed 
upon  all  who  were  not  in  the  secret  until,  at 
dessert,  he  began  to  spin  plates  to  illustrate  the 
complications  of  European  politics.  The  poet 
himself  assumed  the  disguise  of  a  maid-servant, 
and  spilt  soup  on  the  heads  of  the  guests.  He 
also — being  an  artist  as  well  as  a  poet — cari- 
catured the  company,  drawing  a  cartoon  of 
himself  in  particular  as  "  Don  Juan  trying  to 
borrow  half  a  franc " ;  and  he  celebrated  the 
receptions  in  some  doggerel  verses,  discovered 
among  his  papers  after  his  death,  and  recently 
published  by  M.  Maurice  Clouard.  As  they  are 
only  doggerel,  and  not  poetry,  one  may  venture 
upon  an  English  version  of  a  few  of  the 
stanzas : — 

"  Amid  pots  of  mignonette, 

In  her  salon  near  the  sky, 
George  smokes  a  cigarette, 
With  a  tear-drop  in  her  eye. 

1  For   many  years   the  dramatic  critic  of  the  Revue  des  deux 
Mondes. 

E  65 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Buloz  sits  on  the  ground, 

His  best  respects  to  pay ; 
Solange  behind  is  found, 

Writing  a  book  in  play. 

As  solemn  as  a  stone, 
Boucoiran,  splashed  with  dirt, 

Remarks  with  mournful  tone 
Musset's  unbuttoned  shirt. 

Menard,  with  muddy  shoes, 

Of  speech  is  far  more  free ; 
Paul  listens  to  his  views, 

While  pouring  out  the  tea. 

Planche,  who  was  drunk  last  night, 

Hides  in  a  corner  now, — 
A  sorry,  sorry  sight  ..." 

But  the  rest  of  the  verse  about  Gustave 
Planche  is  too  offensive  to  be  quoted  ;  and  thereby 
hangs  a  tale. 

Gustave  Planche  had  never  been  George 
Sand's  lover,  but  he  had  hoped  to  be,  and  he 
had  an  old-standing  quarrel  with  Alfred  de 
Musset.  They  had  met  at  a  ball,  and  there  had 
been  jealousy,  and  an  attempt  at  a  mean  revenge. 
The  critic  had  accused  the  poet  of  kissing  his 
partner — the  most  shocking  of  all  offences  in  the 
eyes  of  those  French  people  who  are  not  Bo- 
hemians. Challenged  to  substantiate  the  charge, 
he  had  had  to  admit  that  it  was  a  calumny. 
The  anger  of  an  angry  father  had  been  diverted 
from  the  poet's  head  to  his ;  the  angry  father  had 
laid  a  stick  about  his  shoulders;  and  the  only 
redress  open  to  him  had  been  to  review  the 

66 


"I  have  fallen  in  love" 

poet  unfavourably.  And  now  the  poet  crossed 
his  path  again.  He  glared,  but  he  had  to  go. 
It  was  in  vain  that  he  tried  to  establish  himself 
in  George  Sand's  favour  by  challenging  the 
critics  who  spoke  unkindly  of  her  fiction.  She 
hardly  thanked  him,  and  other  people  laughed 
at  him  ;  and  so  he  passes  out  of  our  story. 

He  was  clever  enough,  but  a  plebeian.  Alfred 
de  Musset  was  cleverer,  and  an  aristocrat — 
refined,  though  a  debauchee  —  dissolute  only 
through  hysteria — too  young  for  his  dissipations 
to  have  set  any  ugly  mark  on  him.  Gustave 
Planche,  no  doubt,  was  not  the  only  man  who 
seemed  vulgar  beside  him.  He  was  a  "  sublime 
child " — not  less  handsome  than  distinguished  ; 
and  George  Sand,  in  loving  him,  felt  that  she 
had  once  more  plunged  into  happiness.  Her 
letters  to  Sainte-Beuve  leave  us  in  no  doubt 
about  that. 

"I  have  fallen  in  love  —  very  seriously  this 
time --with  Alfred  de  Musset.  It  is  not  a 
caprice,  but  a  genuine  attachment.  ...  I  have 
loved  before — once  for  six  years,  and  once  for 
three  years — and  what  I  am  capable  of  now  I 
do  not  know.  Many  fancies  have  traversed  my 
brain.  But  my  heart  was  not  so  worn  out  as 
I  had  feared.  I  say  that  because  I  feel  it. 

"  I  felt  it  also  when  I  loved  P[rosper]  M [crime* e]. 
He  repelled  me,  and  I  had  to  make  haste  and 
recover.  But  now,  instead  of  being  pained  and 

67 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

misunderstood,  I  find  a  candour,  a  loyalty, 
and  a  tenderness  which  cause  me  intoxicating 
delight.  It  is  a  young  man's  love  and  a 
comrade's  friendship  --  something  that  I  had 
never  dreamt  of  and  never  expected  to  encounter 
—least  of  all  from  him.  I  denied  this  affection, 
at  first,  and  repelled  it,  and  refused  it ;  but  then 
I  yielded,  and  I  am  happy  through  having 
done  so. 

"  Yes,  I  am  happy.  Thank  God  for  me. 
True,  I  have  my  hours  of  suffering  and  vague 
melancholy.  That  is  in  me,  and  a  part  of  me. 
But  I  am  in  the  path  of  recovery  and  consolation. 
Do  not  dissuade  me  from  this  belief." 

And  then,  a  month  later  : — 

"  My  friend,  I  am  happy,  very  happy.  Every 
day  finds  me  more  attached  to  him  ;  every  day, 
the  trifles  that  used  to  make  me  suffer  vanish 
from  my  life  ;  every  day,  the  beautiful  things  of 
life  that  I  used  to  admire  shine  for  me  more 
brilliantly.  And  then,  besides  all  his  other 
qualities,  he  is  such  a  'good  fellow.'  His  in- 
timacy is  as  delightful  to  me  as  his  love  for  me 
was  precious.  After  all,  you  see,  there  is  nothing 
really  good  in  the  world  but  that." 

An  idyll  truly !  And  what  more  natural  than 
that  the  lovers  should  feel  that  their  love  required 
the  consecration  of  a  honeymoon  ? 

Biographers  have  said  that  they  fled  from  Paris 
68 


At  Fontainebleau 

in  order  to  escape  from  Paul — that  guardian  angel 
of  an  elder  brother  who  was  so  fond  of  looking  in 
to  see  how  they  were  getting  on.     It  may  be  so  ; 
but  it  is  hard  to  believe  that   Paul  was  the  only 
caller  whose  visits  seemed  an  intrusion  on  their 
happiness.     All  the  old  friends  must  have  been 
more  or  less  in  the  way ;  and  too  many  of  them 
remained  even  when  Gustave  Planche  had  been 
got  rid  of.     They  were  living  in  a  rowdy  atmo- 
sphere, and  rowdiness  jars  upon  romance.     They 
had  not  become  lovers  merely  in  order  to  receive 
and  entertain   Bohemians.     That  was  altogether 
the  wrong  frame  for  the  picture — a  frame  which 
tended  to  make  the  picture  commonplace.     For 
an  idyll  such  as  theirs,  the  surroundings  must  be 
more  idyllic.     They  must  roam  through  the  secret 
places  of  forests,  and  float  on  the  still  waters  of 
lagoons.     For    fear    lest   love    should    languish, 
they  must  travel. 

The  first  brief  honeymoon  was  at  Franchard, 
on  the  verge  of  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau.  It 
has  no  history,  which  means  that  it  was  happy. 
It  was  either  during  the  journey  or  immediately 
afterwards  that  Sainte-Beuve  received  the  second 
of  the  letters  which  we  have  quoted.  Another 
letter  of  about  the  same  date  gives  directions  for 
the  removal  of  Alfred's  belongings  from  George 
Sand's  apartment  in  order  that  her  husband  may 
not  discover  them  there  and  wonder.  But  the 
lovers  were  by  no  means  satisfied  to  ''settle 
down  "  when  they  returned  to  Paris.  Apparently 

69 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

they  found  that  they  were  too  conspicuous,  and 
that  their  business  was  everybody's  business.  It 
could  hardly  be  otherwise.  They  lived,  and 
loved,  too  much  in  public  for  their  peace.  And, 
of  course,  there  was  no  real  need  for  either  of 
them  to  stay  in  Paris.  Maurice  was  at  the  Lycee, 
and  Solange  could  be  sent  to  Nohant,  and  novels 
could  be  written  anywhere.  The  South  was 
calling.  Why  not  obey  the  call  ? 

There  was  one  difficulty.  Madame  de  Musset 
objected,  and  Alfred  was  a  good  and  devoted  son. 
His  mother  was  not  acquainted  with  his  mistress  ; 
but  she  had  read  her  books,  and  drawn  her  infer- 
ences. George  Sand's  heroes  seemed  to  her  "  bad 
form."  "  Has  the  woman  never  in  her  life  met 
a  gentleman  ?  "  she  asked  scornfully  ;  and  though, 
after  the  manner  of  French  mothers,  she  accepted 
the  liaison  as  something  with  which  she  had  better 
not  try  to  interfere,  the  proposal  of  the  voyage  to 
Italy  was  too  severe  a  strain  on  her  affection.  By 
what  means  her  objection  was  overcome  she  re- 
lated, years  afterwards,  in  a  letter  from  her  to  her 
son  Paul,  published  in  M.  Clouard's  collection  of 
Documents  intdits  sur  Alfred  de  Musset. 

"  I  have  told  you  a  hundred  times  how  your 
brother,  before  his  departure,  asked  my  consent 
to  this  sad  journey,  and  how  I  obstinately  refused 
it.  At  last,  seeing  how  desperate  I  was,  he  threw 
himself  on  his  knees,  exclaiming,  '  Do  not  weep, 
mother.  If  one  of  us  must  weep,  it  shall  not  be 

70 


Departure  for  Venice 

you.'  Those  were  his  very  words.  It  was  not 
likely  that  I  should  forget  them.  Having  thus 
reassured  me,  he  went  to  the  lady  and  told  her 
that  he  could  not  go — that  he  could  not  cause  his 
mother  this  distress.  The  good  son  that  he  was  ! 
And  what  did  the  woman  do  ?  At  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  she  took  a  cab  and  drove  to  my 
door.  I  was  told  that  someone  was  below,  and 
wished  to  see  me.  I  went  downstairs,  followed 
by  a  servant,  suspecting  nothing.  Seeing  a 
woman  alone  in  the  carriage,  I  got  into  it.  It 
was  she.  Then  she  employed  all  the  resources  of 
the  eloquence  of  which  she  was  a  past  mistress  to 
induce  me  to  entrust  my  son  to  her,  assuring  me 
that  she  would  love  him  like  a  mother,  and  would 
take  better  care  of  him  than  I  should  myself. 
And  so — what  can  I  say  ?  The  siren  snatched  a 
consent  from  me.  I  yielded  to  her,  with  tears  in 
my  eyes,  and  against  the  instincts  of  my  heart ; 
for  he  had  a  prudent  mother,  though  she  has  dared 
to  say  the  contrary  in  Elle  et  Lui" 

That  is  how  they  settled  the  matter ;  and  Paul 
— the  devoted  Paul — saw  the  lovers  off.  "  On  a 
misty,  melancholy  evening,"  he  writes,  "  I  saw 
them  enter  the  stage  coach  amid  circumstances 
of  evil  omen." 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Meeting  with  Stendhal  at  Lyons  —  Arrival  at  Venice  —  George 
Sand  works  while  Musset  sits  in  cafes  —  Dr.  Pagello  sees 
George  Sand  on  the  balcony  and  admires  her  —  She  calls 
him  in  to  prescribe  for  a  headache — Shortly  afterwards  she 
summons  him  again  to  prescribe  for  Musset — His  diagnosis. 

THE  circumstances  of  evil  omen  referred  to  in  the 
last  chapter  were  as  follows  :  The  coach  in  which 
the  travellers  took  their  seats  was  the  thirteenth 
to  leave  the  yard ;  one  of  its  wheels  came  into 
violent  collision  with  a  big  stone  while  passing 
through  the  gateway  ;  a  water-carrier  was  knocked 
over  by  the  vehicle  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain.  One  imagines,  however,  that  it  was 
only  in  retrospect  that  the  significance  of  the 
auspices  was  realised.  "Tous  les  commence- 
ments sont  heureux,"  said  Madame  de  Stael ;  and 
this  honeymoon  belonged  to  the  beginning,  though 
it  heralded  the  end.  The  lovers  were  in  a  holiday 
mood,  ready  to  be  amused  and  to  laugh. 

They  laughed  at  Stendhal — novelist  and  French 
Consul  at  Civita  Vecchia — whom  they  met  at 
Lyons.  He  had  supper  with  them ;  and  after 
supper,  George  Sand  tells  us,  "he  was  very 
merry,  got  rather  drunk,  and  danced  round  the 
table  in  his  big  top  boots."  They  laughed  again 

72 


Letters  Home 

at  Alfred  de  Musset's  sea-sickness  on  the  boat 
that  took  them  from  Marseilles  to  Genoa ;  and 
the  humours  of  the  latter  incident  inspired  a 
caricature.  The  poet  depicts  himself  paying  his 
tribute  to  the  sea  while  his  companion  stands 
beside  him  gaily  smoking  a  cigarette.  There  are 
other  caricatures  of  the  same  date,  all  of  them 
bearing  unmistakable  testimony  to  the  lovers1 
lightness  of  heart. 

From  Marseilles  George  Sand  wrote  to  her 
son  Maurice,  whom  she  had  left  at  school.  She 
would  not  be  away  long,  she  said,  but  a  warm 
climate  was  necessary  for  her  health.  She  wished 
both  her  children  were  with  her,  but  they  were 
too  young.  Maurice  must  be  a  good  boy  and 
write  regularly.  He  must  also  be  diligent  at  his 
lessons,  and  not  forget  to  wash  his  face  and  hands. 
One  smiles ;  but  perhaps  there  is  not  really  any- 
thing to  smile  at.  A  woman  may  still  desire  to 
be  a  good  mother,  even  when  she  has  left  her 
husband  to  live  her  own  life  in  her  own  way,  and 
so  develop,  as  it  were,  the  double  personality 
which  the  irregular  situation  needs.  The  situation 
imports  its  own  ironies,  but  there  is  nothing  to 
be  gained  by  insisting  on  them.  Let  us  return 
to  the  itinerary. 

The  details  are  fixed  by  the  dates  on  Alfred  de 
Musset's  passport.  From  Genoa  the  lovers  took 
the  boat  to  Leghorn,  and  by  December  28  they 
were  at  Florence.  They  tossed  a  coin,  it  appears, 
to  decide  whether  they  would  go  to  Venice  or  to 

73 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Rome ;  and,  chance  having  thus  determined  that 
the  former  city  should  be  their  goal,  they  reached 
it,  after  passing  through  Ferrara  and  Bologna,  on 
January  19,  1834,  and  took  an  apartment  in  the 
Hotel  Danieli.  And  then  followed  their  quarrel, 
and  Alfred  de  Musset's  illness,  and  the  calling  in 
of  the  doctor  who  was  to  be  his  favoured  rival. 

How,  and  when,  and  about  what  the  lovers 
quarrelled  nobody  knows  for  certain.  The 
partisans  of  the  poet  tell  one  story,  the  partisans 
of  his  mistress  another ;  and,  as  the  stories  are 
not  mutually  exclusive,  both  of  them  may  perfectly 
well  be  true. 

Paul  de  Musset's  story  is  that  his  brother 
was  shocked  by  George  Sand's  outrageous  con- 
versation. She  spoke,  he  says,  before  casual 
acquaintances,  of  her  mother's  adventures  as  a 
camp  follower  of  the  Army  of  Italy — her  relations 
with  the  aged  general  and  her  flight  with  the 
captivating  captain — and  of  her  own  birth  within 
a  month  of  her  parents'  wedding-day.  Very 
possibly  she  did.  It  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  she 
was  likely  to  do,  and  the  sort  of  thing  to  which 
he  was  certain  to  object.  George  Sand,  with 
all  her  talents,  had,  at  that  date,  many  of  the  in- 
stincts of  the  grisette  ;  and  grisettes  are  more 
loquacious  than  women  of  the  world.  Alfred  de 
Musset,  with  all  his  faults,  had  the  instincts  of  a 
gentleman.  It  is  credible  enough  that  George 
Sand  sneered  at  the  "filles  bien  dleve'es,  dociles 
et  hypocrites  de  votre  caste,"  and  that  he  re- 

74 


The  Quarrels  of  the  Lovers 

preached  her  for  sacrificing  her  mother's  reputa- 
tion to  her  democratic  theories.  And  assuredly, 
however  quickly  reconciliation  followed,  the  germs 
of  estrangement  would  have  been  contained  in  the 
animated  dialogue ! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Sandists  say  that  George 
was  ill  and  that  Alfred  neglected  her.  It  is  probable 
enough  ;  and  he  would  have  been  the  more,  rather 
than  the  less,  likely  to  do  so,  after  such  passages 
at  arms  as  those  which  Paul  de  Musset  reports. 
But  her  illness  was  not  serious.  It  did  not  prevent 
her  from  going  to  see  the  sights,  and  it  did  not 
prevent  her  from  working.  She  was  paying  the 
expenses  of  her  honeymoon  with  her  pen  ;  and  she 
was  as  diligent  with  her  pen  as  more  domesticated 
women  with  their  needles.  She  is  herself  our  wit- 
ness for  the  statement  that  she  worked  eight  hours 
a  day  on  an  average,  and  sometimes  worked  thirteen 
hours  at  a  stretch.  "  Cette  terrible  vache  a  ecrire," 
was  an  enemy's  description  of  her ;  she  yielded 
"  copy  "  as  regularly  as  a  cow  yields  milk.  It  was  a 
great  deal  to  expect  that  Alfred  de  Musset  would 
stay  at  home  and  admire  her  beautiful  black  eyes, 
or  mend  her  quills  and  pin  her  sheets  together, 
while  she  performed  her  tremendous  daily  task. 

Perhaps  she  would  have  liked  him  to  sit  opposite 
to  her,  busy  with  his  own  work,  like  Jules 
Sandeau ; l  but  poetry  is  not  thus  composed 

1  Miss  Thomas  reproaches  him  for  this,  and  wonders  how  he 
could  have  been  idle  with  such  a  commendable  example  of 
diligence  before  his  eyes. 

75 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

currente  calamo.  Inspiration  is  a  gift,  and  the 
poet  must  wait  till  it  is  given ;  and  the  poet  does 
not  wait  most  happily  or  hopefully  while  con- 
demned to  listen  to  a  fellow-worker's  pen  un- 
ceasingly scratching  the  paper.  That  way  lie 
boredom  and  impatience  ;  and  Alfred  de  Musset 
fled  impatiently  from  boredom,  and  went  to 
wait  elsewhere.  We  have  no  proof  that  George 
Sand  tried  to  detain  him.  It  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  she  worked  better  and  faster  when 
he  was  out  of  the  way.  Only  he  was  the 
sort  of  young  man  who,  left  to  his  own  de- 
vices in  a  strange  city,  was  certain  to  get  into 
mischief. 

There  is  a  story,  not  so  well  attested  as  it  might 
be,  that  he  was  inveigled  into  a  gambling  hell 
and  lost  ten  thousand  francs,  and  that  George 
Sand  borrowed  money  from  Buloz  to  enable  him 
to  pay  this  debt  of  honour.  Whether  that  story 
be  true  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  his  manner  of  life 
was  dissipated.  He  sat  late  in  cafe's — and  not 
alone.  The  French  Consul,  proud  no  doubt  to 
render  a  service  to  a  distinguished  French  man 
of  letters,  acted  as  his  guide  and  conducted  him 
to  all  the  most  disreputable  places  in  Venice. 
While  his  mistress  was  writing  romances  "h  jet 
continu  "  for  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  he  was 
keeping  late  hours  and  consorting  with  singers, 
dancers,  and  loose  women  generally.  But  not, 
as  some  biographers  seem  to  suggest,  for  any 
length  of  time ;  for  he  had  been  less  than  a 

76 


Dr.  Pagello 

fortnight  in  Venice  when  he  fell  ill,  and  Dr. 
Pagello  was  fetched. 

Why  Pagello  rather  than  another?  It  used 
to  be  assumed  that  the  choice  fell  upon  him  by 
accident ;  that  he  was  the  nearest  physician,  or 
the  most  eminent,  or  the  one  recommended  by 
the  hotel-keeper.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Pagello 
was  too  young  to  be  eminent,  and  the  hotel- 
keeper  had  recommended  someone  else  ;  but  he 
was  handsome,  and  George  Sand  already  knew 
him. 

How  she  had  made  his  acquaintance  we  know 
from  his  own  pen.  He  was  very  discreet  as  long 
as  discretion  mattered.  At  the  time  when  George 
Sand's  amours  were  the  talk  of  Paris,  he  con- 
sistently held  his  tongue — chiefly,  no  doubt, 
because  he  was  a  gentleman,  but  partly  also,  it 
may  be,  because  it  was  better  for  his  practice  that 
the  story  should  be  allowed  to  be  forgotten.  But 
he  kept  a  diary ;  and,  at  last,  when  he  was  a 
very  old  man,  he  allowed  a  journalist  to  copy 
extracts  from  it.  He  had  long  been  the  sole 
survivor  of  the  three-cornered  love-duel ;  and  no 
doubt  the  journalist  persuaded  him  that  such 
amours  as  his  belonged  to  history,  and  that  the 
public  had  a  right  to  know  the  truth.  So  he 
confessed  as  follows  : — 

"  I  was  living  at  Venice,  where,  having  finished 
my  medical  studies,  I  was  beginning  to  work  up 
a  practice,  and,  one  day,  I  took  a  walk  on  the 

77 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Quai  des  Esclavons  with  a  Genoese  friend,  a 
traveller  and  a  man  of  letters.  As  we  passed 
beneath  the  windows  of  the  Hotel  Danieli,  I 
saw,  on  the  first  floor  balcony,  a  young  woman 
of  somewhat  melancholy  countenance,  with  very 
black  hair  and  eyes  that  betokened  a  strong  will 
and  a  virile  character.  Her  attire  was  singular. 
A  scarlet  scarf  was  fastened  like  a  turban  round 
her  head. 

"  Round  her  neck  she  wore  a  cravat,  prettily 
fastened  to  a  collar  white  as  snow  ;  and  she  was 
smoking  a  long  cigar  with  the  assurance  of  a 
soldier  while  she  chatted  with  the  fair-haired 
young  man  who  sat  beside  her.  I  stopped  to 
look  at  her,  and  my  companion  quietly  nudged 
me. 

"  '  Ah ! '  he  said.  '  You  seem  to  be  fascinated 
by  that  charming  smoker.  Do  you  happen  to 
know  her  ? ' 

"  '  No/  I  replied,  '  but  I  would  give  a  good  deal 
to  do  so.  She  must  be  very  different  from  the 
common  run  of  women.  Tell  me,  you  who  have 
travelled  so  much,  what  do  you  think  of  her  ? ' 

'"Precisely  because  I  have  seen  so  many  women 
of  all  races  and  all  colours/  he  rejoined,  '  I  can 
form  no  reasonable  theory.  Perhaps  she  is  a 
romantic  Englishwoman,  or  else  an  exiled  Pole. 
She  looks  like  a  person  of  high  station,  and  she 
strikes  me  as  strange  and  haughty/ 

"  Gossiping  thus,  we  reached  the  Square  of 
Saint  Mark,  where  we  separated. 

78 


"  A  certain  beauty  ' 

"  On  the  following  day  I  went  to  call  on  my 
Genoese  friend — it  was  Rebizzo ;  I  do  not  think 
there  is  any  indiscretion  in  naming  him.  He  was 
at  dinner  with  his  family.  He  noticed  my  pre- 
occupied air,  and  said,  turning  to  his  wife — 

" '  Look,  Bianchina.  Our  friend  Pagello  is 
thinking  of  a  certain  beauty  whom  he  saw 
smoking  .  .  .' 

"'And  whom  Lazzaro  [Rebizzo]  believes/  I 
rejoined,  'to  be  a  Pole  or  an  Englishwoman, 
but  whom  I  can  assure  you  to  be  of  pure  French 
blood.  I  was  with  her  an  hour  ago,  and  I  shall 
return  to  see  her  again.  She  is  a  patient,  and 
she  has  asked  for  my  address.' 

"  '  Indeed  ! '  exclaimed  Lazzaro,  opening  his 
eyes  wide. 

"  *  Certainly,  certainly.  Danieli,  the  hotel- 
keeper,  fetched  me  this  morning,  and  I  was 
shown  into  the  smoking-lady's  room.  She  was 
sitting  on  a  low  chair,  leaning  her  head  on  her 
hand,  and  she  asked  me  to  give  her  something  to 
cure  a  bad  headache.  I  felt  her  pulse,  and  pro- 
posed to  bleed  her.  She  agreed.  I  performed 
the  operation  there  and  then,  and  she  felt  better. 
In  saying  good-bye  to  me,  she  asked  me  to  come 
and  see  her  again,  unless  I  heard  to  the  contrary. 
The  fair-haired  youth,  her  inseparable  companion, 
escorted  me  most  politely  to  the  foot  of  the  stair- 
case. That  is  all  that  happened  this  morning. 
But  a  presentiment — whether  pleasant  or  bitter  I 
cannot  say — whispers  to  me,  '  You  will  see  that 

79 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

woman  again,  and  she  will  make  a  conquest  of 
you.' 

"  There  followed  a  long  pause,  interrupted  by  a 
burst  of  laughter  from  my  hosts,  who  declared  that 
I  was  in  love.  'No,  no,'  I  replied;  'not  yet.' 
4  But  who  is  this  foreigner  ? '  asked  Bianchina.  I 
answered  that  I  did  not  know.  '  But  why  didn't 
you  ask  the  hotel-keeper  who  she  was  and  where 
she  came  from  ? '  '  Why  ?  Because  I  was  afraid 
to  know.'  '  Ah,  ah  !  "  they  said  ;  '  he  is  in  love.' ' 

A  few  days  passed — "  twenty  days,"  according 
to  Pagello's  narrative,  but  it  cannot  really  have 
been  so  long — and  then  he  called  again  on  Rebizzo 
and  showed  him  the  following  letter  :— 

"MY  DEAR  MR.  PAGELLO, — Please  come  and 
see  us  as  soon  as  you  possibly  can,  and  bring  a 
good  physician  with  you  for  a  consultation  on  the 
case  of  the  French  invalid  at  the  hotel. 

"  Let  me  tell  you  before  you  come  that  I  am 
more  anxious  about  his  reason  than  about  his  life. 
Since  he  has  been  ill,  his  head  has  been  ex- 
ceedingly weak,  and  he  often  argues  like  a  baby. 
Nevertheless,  he  is  a  man  of  energetic  character 
and  powerful  imagination — a  poet  much  admired 
in  France.  But  the  excitement  of  brain-work, 
wine,  dissipation,  women,  and  the  gaming  table 
have  much  fatigued  him,  and  have  wrought  upon 
his  nerves.  He  gets  agitated  over  the  smallest 
trifles  as  if  they  were  matters  of  importance, 

80 


Musset's  Illness 

"  Once,  three  months  ago,  he  was  like  a  raving 
maniac  all  night  long  in  consequence  of  some 
trouble  that  he  had  on  his  mind.  He  thought  he 
saw  phantoms  round  his  bed,  and  he  shrieked  with 
fear  and  horror.  At  present  he  is  still  uneasy, 
and  this  morning  he  knows  neither  what  he  says 
nor  what  he  does.  He  weeps  ;  he  complains  of  a 
distress  to  which  he  can  assign  neither  name  nor 
cause ;  he  calls  for  his  country,  and  vows  that  he 
is  going  to  die  or  go  mad. 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  this  is  the  result  of 
the  fever,  or  of  nervous  excitement,  or  is  a 
beginning  of  insanity.  I  think  bleeding  would 
afford  him  relief. 

"  I  beg  you  to  repeat  all  this  to  the  doctor,  and 
not  to  be  deterred  by  the  difficulties  presented  by 
the  patient's  intractable  disposition.  He  is  the 
person  whom  I  love  best  in  the  world,  and  I  am 
terribly  distressed  to  see  him  in  this  state. 

"  I  hope  you  will  show  us  all  the  friendship  that 
two  foreigners  can  hope  for. 

"  Excuse  the  miserable  Italian  that  I  write. 

"GEORGE  SAND." 

This  letter  is  important,  and  proves  a  good 
deal  beyond  the  fact  that  George  Sand  found  a 
difficulty  in  expressing  herself  in  the  Italian 
language.  It  proves,  when  read  in  conjunction 
with  Pagello's  confession,  that  she  had  noticed  his 
manoeuvres  underneath  her  balcony,  and  had  gone 
out  of  her  way  to  seek  his  acquaintance.  It 
F  81 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

suggests  unmistakably  that  the  alleged  headache 
was  rather  a  pretext  than  a  reason  for  inviting 
him  to  call.  One  may  almost  infer  from  it  that 
their  relations  had  been  so  little  professional  that 
she  did  not  even  know  that  he  was  a  fully  qualified 
medical  man,  and  one  may  certainly  infer  that  she 
had  no  confidence  whatever  in  his  professional 
skill.  Since  a  Dr.  Saintini  was  already  in 
attendance,  this  can  be  the  only  meaning  of  the 
appeal  to  Pagello  not  to  come  alone,  but  to  bring 
some  competent  colleague  with  him. 

He  was  cleverer  than  she  thought,  however ; 
and  no  doubt  he  had  a  good  bedside  manner,  to 
be  assumed  at  the  proper  time  and  dropped  again 
when  occasion  ceased  to  call  for  it.  At  all 
events,  he  inspired  sufficient  confidence  to  be 
retained  in  charge  of  the  case ;  and  this  portion 
of  his  narrative  continues  : — 

"  To  read  the  letter  to  the  end  it  was  necessary 
to  turn  over  the  leaf.  What  astonished  my  friends 
was  the  signature  which,  when  they  had  read  it, 
caused  them  to  exclaim  with  a  single  voice,  'George 
Sand!' 

"  They  then  asked  me  whether  I  had  visited  my 
French  patient,  what  was  the  matter  with  him, 
and  how  he  was  getting  on.  I  answered,  *  My 
young  patient  is  in  bed  with  a  very  grave  illness 
which  I  and  my  colleague  have  diagnosed  as  a 
very  dangerous  typhoid  fever.  His  name  is 
Alfred  de  Musset.' 

82 


<c 


The  Singer  of  the  Moon " 


"  '  Per  Bacco ! '  exclaimed  Rebizzo,  *  that  is  the 
romantic  singer  of  the  moon.  Do  you  know  his 
poems  ? ' 

"  'Yes,'  I  replied.  'I  have  read  two  or  three 
of  them.  He  has  a  wonderful  imagination — a 
little  extravagant,  but  very  delicate,  all  the  same.' ' 


CHAPTER   IX 

The  nature  of  Musset's  illness — The  reasons  for  supposing  it  to 
have  been  typhoid  fever — The  behaviour  of  George  Sand  and 
Pagello  at  his  bedside — George  Sand's  declaration  of  love — 
Pagello's  doubts  and  hesitations — It  is  agreed  between  them 
that  Musset  shall  return  alone. 

MADAME  KARENINE  states  that  Alfred  de  Musset's 
illness  was  not  typhoid  fever  but  delirium  tremens. 
She  gives  no  reasons  for  the  statement,  relying 
apparently  upon  tradition  and  report ;  but  the 
conclusion  is  one  which,  even  without  the  help  of 
rumour,  a  physician  would  be  inclined  to  deduce 
from  the  records  of  the  symptoms  and  the  treat- 
ment. 

The  reasons  why  Pagello  cannot  have  "diag- 
nosed" either  "typhoid  fever,"  as  he  says  he  did 
in  one  version  of  the  story,  or  "a  nervous  typhoid 
fever,"  of  which  he  speaks  in  another,  are,  at  any 
rate,  obvious  and  irrefutable.  "  Nervous  typhoid 
fever "  is  a  complication  unknown  to  medicine  ; 
and  typhoid  fever  itself  was  unknown  to  medicine 
in  the  year  1834.  Typhoid  and  typhus  were,  at 
that  date,  confused  and  called  "continuous  fever" 
— a  term  used  to  distinguish  them  from  the  inter- 
mittent malarial  fevers.  The  alleged  "  diagnosis  " 
is,  therefore,  quite  evidently  an  afterthought,  or  a 
euphemism. 

84 


Pagello's  Prescription 

It  certainly  was  not,  however,  an  afterthought 
due  to  increased  pathological  knowledge.  What 
we  know  of  the  patient's  symptoms  not  only  fails 
to  suggest  typhoid  fever,  but  is  absolutely  incom- 
patible with  the  hypothesis.  Of  several  character- 
istic typhoid  symptoms  there  is  no  mention.  The 
convalescence  was  too  rapid.  The  fever  was  not, 
as  George  Sand's  letter,  quoted  at  the  end  of 
the  last  chapter  shows,  continuous.  Nor  can  the 
alternative  theory  of  intermittent,  or  malarial, 
fever  be  entertained.  An  Italian  physician  could 
not  conceivably  have  failed  to  recognise  that 
disorder ;  and  no  delicate  consideration  for  the 
feelings  of  the  Musset  family  need  have  hindered 
him  from  naming  it. 

We  have  Pagello's  prescription,  which  Alfred 
de  Musset  kept.  M.  Clouard  publishes  it  in  his 
Documents  inedits,  and  it  is  as  follows: — 

Aq.  ceras.  nigr,  ij 

Laud,  liquid.  Sydn.  gutt.  xx 

Aq.  coob.  laur.  ceras.  gutt.  xv 

This,  by  itself,  proves  little.  The  medicine  is 
only  the  common  sedative  of  the  period,  and 
might  have  been  administered  merely  because 
the  doctor  did  not  know  exactly  what  was  the 
matter  ;  but  when  we  find  the  delirious  patient 
to  whom  it  is  given,  seeing  " phantoms"  around  his 
bed,  needing  to  be  held  down  by  two  strong  men, 
warned  by  his  doctor,  during  his  convalescence, 
to  avoid  strong  drink,  suspected  of  obtaining 

85 


George  Sand  and   Her  Lovers 

it  surreptitiously,  and  relapsing,  we  know  pretty 
well  what  to  think.  All  these  conditions 
were  present  in  the  case ;  and  we  have  a  very 
graphic  picture  of  the  delirium  in  a  letter  which 
George  Sand  addressed  to  Boucoiran. 

"  Last  night,"  she  says,  "  was  awful.  Six  hours 
of  such  frenzy  that,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  two 
strong  men,  he  ran  about  his  room  in  a  state  of 
nudity.  Shouts,  songs,  yells,  convulsions !  Oh, 
my  God !  What  a  spectacle  it  was  !  " 

There  seems  no  doubt  that  the  sufferer  was 
skilfully  treated  and  well  nursed.  He  always 
believed,  and  frequently  declared,  that  he  owed 
his  life  to  Pagello's  ability  and  George  Sand's 
attentive  care.  But  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
his  mistress  made  love  to  his  doctor  while  he  was 
lying  ill.  His  brother  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that 
he  saw  them  doing  so  at  a  time  when  they  believed 
him  to  be  asleep. 

The  story  is  very  circumstantial.  Paul  de 
Musset  first  told  it  in  Lui  et  Elle.  It  has  since 
been  confirmed  by  a  document  said  to  have  been 
dictated  to  the  author  by  Alfred  de  Musset  him- 
self. He  saw  George  Sand,  he  says,  sitting  on 
Pagello's  knee  and  kissing  him  ;  he  saw  them 
have  tea  together  and  drink  from  the  same  cup. 
And  he  concludes  :— 

"  When  they  had  finished,  Pagello  got  up  to  go. 
G.  S.  went  to  the  door  with  him.  They  passed 

86 


Love-Making  in  the  Sickroom 

behind  a  screen,  and  I  fancied  that  they  kissed 
each  other.  Then  George  Sand  took  a  lamp  to 
light  Pagello  down  the  stairs.  They  were  a  long 
time  together  on  the  staircase.  During  that  time 
I  succeeded  in  lifting  myself  on  to  my  trembling 
hands,  and  drew  myself  up  on  all  fours  on  the 
bed.  I  strained  my  eyes  to  look  at  the  table. 
There  was  only  one  cup  there.  So  I  was  not 
mistaken.  They  were  lovers.  The  matter  did 
not  admit  of  the  shadow  of  a  doubt.  It  was 
enough  for  me.  And  yet  I  contrived  to  make 
myself  doubt,  so  revolting  was  it  to  me  to  believe 
so  horrible  a  thing." 

The  charge  is  specific,  and  George  Sand  always 
repudiated  it  with  indignation.  It  is  impossible  to 
check  either  her  statement  or  that  of  her  accuser. 
The  visions  of  a  delirious  man  who  admittedly 
"saw  phantoms"  cannot  be  taken  as  evidence; 
and  we  cannot  even  exclude  the  possibility  that 
he  may  have  been  under  the  influence  of  absinthe 
when  he  told  his  brother  the  story.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  impossible,  in  view  of  the  known 
facts,  to  say  that  the  story  is  intrinsically  im- 
probable ;  and  indeed  the  known  facts  are  of  such 
a  nature  as  to  deprive  it  of  a  good  deal  of  its 
importance.  George  Sand  may  or  may  not  have 
drunk  her  tea  from  the  same  cup  as  Pagello  ;  but 
it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  she  made  a  declaration 
of  love  to  him  in  the  sickroom.  That  much 
could  be  proved  from  the  Correspondence  if  there 

37 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

were  reason  to  disbelieve  the  bona  fides  of  Pagello's 
own  narrative,  which  is  as  follows  : — 

"  As  you  may  imagine,  I  was  assiduous  in  my 
attendance  on  my  patient.  George  Sand  often 
sat  up  whole  nights  with  me  at  his  bedside. 
We  did  not  watch  in  silence  ;  and  George  Sand's 
charm  and  lofty  intelligence,  and  the  gentle  con- 
fidence which  she  displayed  in  me,  attached  me 
to  her  every  day,  every  hour,  every  moment,  by 
a  stronger  chain.  We  used  to  talk  of  literature, 
of  the  Italian  poets  and  artists,  of  Venetian  history, 
monuments,  and  manners ;  but  at  each  fresh  turn 
that  the  conversation  took,  she  interrupted  me 
and  asked  me  what  I  was  thinking  about.  Con- 
fused when  I  found  myself  caught  thus  absorbed  in 
my  own  thoughts,  I  apologised  profusely,  blushed 
as  red  as  the  glowing  coals,  while  she  would  say, 
with  an  almost  imperceptible  smile  and  a  subtle 
glance,  'Ah,  doctor,  my  thousand  and  one  questions 
are  boring  you.'  And  I  had  nothing  to  say. 

"  One  evening,  when  Alfred  de  Musset  asked 
us  to  quit  his  bedside  because  he  felt  fairly  well 
and  wanted  to  go  to  sleep,  we  sat  down  at  a  table 
near  the  chimney. 

"  '  Well,  madame,'  I  said  to  her,  '  are  you  intend- 
ing to  write  a  novel  about  our  beautiful  Venice  ? ' 

"  '  Perhaps,'  she  replied ;  and  she  took  a  sheet 
of  paper  and  began  to  write  with  the  desperate 
haste  of  one  who  improvises.  I  looked  at  her 
in  astonishment,  watching  her  face,  so  firm,  so 

88 


"  For  the  dense  Pagello " 

severe,  so  inspired.  Then,  anxious  not  to  disturb 
her,  I  opened  a  volume  of  Victor  Hugo  which  was 
lying  on  the  table,  and  ran  my  eyes  over  a  few 
passages,  though  without  being  able  to  pay  the 
least  attention  to  what  I  was  reading.  In  this 
way  a  long  hour  passed.  At  last  George  Sand 
laid  down  her  pen,  and,  without  looking  at  me  or 
speaking  to  me,  laid  her  head  between  her  hands, 
and  remained  in  that  attitude  for  more  than  a 
quarter  of  an  hour.  Then,  rising,  she  looked  me 
straight  in  the  eyes,  picked  up  the  sheet  of  paper 
on  which  she  had  been  writing,  and  said,  *  It  is 
for  you.'  Finally,  taking  the  lamp,  she  gently  ap- 
proached Alfred,  who  was  asleep,  and  asked  me — 

"  '  Doctor,  do  you  think  the  night  is  going  to  be 
fine?1 

"'Yes,'  I  replied. 

"  '  Then  you  can  go  now,  and  we  shall  see  each 
other  again  to-morrow.' 

' 1  left  her,  and  went  straight  home  to  my 
apartments,  where  I  made  haste  to  open  the 


missive." 


According  to  another  version  of  the  story,  the 
doctor  affected  not  to  know — possibly  even  did 
not  know — for  whom  the  communication  was 
intended,  and  George  Sand  had  to  explain  that 
it  was  "for  the  dense  Pagello";  but  that  detail 
hardly  matters.  The  communication,  in  any  case, 
was  a  love  letter — an  avowal  of  love  and  a  demand 
for  it.  Sixty-two  years  afterwards,  when  George 

89 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Sand  and  Musset  had  long  been  in  their  graves, 
and  he  was  nearly  a  nonagenarian,  the  old  man 
gave  the  document  to  Dr.  Cabanes  to  be  published. 
It  was  a  long  and  lyrical  effusion — "effusion" 
really  seems  the  appropriate  word.  Like  most 
improvisations,  it  repeats  the  same  sentiment  over 
and  over  again.  "  I  know  nothing  about  you, 
and  yet  I  love  you.  We  do  not  speak  each  other's 
languages — we  do  not  understand  each  other — 
but  no  matter.  The  love  may  not  last — but  never 
mind  about  that.  I  love  you  now  :  I  want  you." 
That  is  the  burden  of  the  song  ;  and,  of  course, 
there  is  more  than  one  appeal  to  God ;  and  the 
last  lines  run  thus  : — 

"  Perhaps  you  think  that  you  do  not  know  me 
— and  that  I  do  not  know  you.  I  am  ignorant  of 
your  past  life,  and  of  your  character,  and  of  what 
the  n\en  who  do  know  you  think  of  you.  Perhaps 
you  are  the  best  of  men  ;  perhaps  the  worst.  I 
love  you  without  knowing  whether  I  shall  be  able 
to  respect  you.  I  love  you  because  I  feel  drawn 
to  you,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  I  shall  soon 
be  compelled  to  hate  you. 

"If  you  were  a  countryman  of  my  own,  I  would 
question  you,  and  you  would  understand.  But 
that  might  make  my  case  still  more  miserable  ; 
for  you  might  deceive  me. 

"  But  you  will  not  deceive  me.  You  will  make 
no  empty  promises,  and  swear  no  false  oaths. 
You  will  love  me,  according  to  your  lights,  as 

90 


A  Declaration  of  Love 

best  you  can.  I  may  not  find  in  you  what  I 
have  vainly  sought  in  others  ;  but  I  shall  always 
believe  that  you  possess  it.  You  will  allow  me 
to  interpret  as  I  please  the  looks  and  caresses  of 
love,  and  will  not  delude  me  with  deceitful  words. 
I  shall  be  able  to  interpret  your  dreams,  and  shall 
find  an  eloquent  meaning  in  your  silence.  Your 
actions  will  have  for  me  whatever  significance  I 
desire.  When  your  looks  are  tender,  I  shall  fancy 
that  your  soul  is  speaking  to  mine.  When  you 
lift  your  eyes  to  heaven,  I  shall  imagine  that  your 
intelligence  is  ascending  to  the  eternal  home  from 
which  it  emanates. 

"Let  things  remain,  then,  like  that.  .Do  not 
learn  my  language,  and  I  will  not  seek  in  yours 
for  the  words  which  might  tell  you  of  my  doubts 
and  fears.  I  am  willing  to  be  ignorant  of  your 
life,  and  of  the  part  that  you  play  in  the  world  of 
men.  I  should  like  even  to  be  ignorant  of  your 
name ;  but  you  must  at  least  conceal  your  soul  from 
me,  that  I  may  always  believe  it  to  be  beautiful." 

A  strange  letter  truly  for  the  romantic  writer  of 
European  reputation  to  address  to  the  struggling 
young  general  practitioner.  Evidently  his  be- 
haviour, up  to  that  point,  cannot  have  been  very 
unprofessional,  or  a  much  simpler  declaration 
would  have  sufficed.  And  it  was  not  by  any 
means  a  declaration  that  every  general  practitioner 
would  have  found  flattering ;  for  it  spoke  not  of 
a  real  union  of  hearts,  but  only  of  blind  passion, 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

rejoicing  in  its  blindness  and  afraid  of  opening 
its  eyes.  George  Sand,  in  short,  was  treating 
Pagello  very  much  as  Prosper  Merime'e  had 
treated  her, — declining  in  very  much  the  same 
way,  though  with  a  more  open-hearted  candour, 
to  take  him  seriously. 

An  older  man — a  man  with  a  stronger  sense  of 
personal  dignity — would  have  perceived  that,  and 
resented  it ;  or  would  have  tried  to  play  the  game 
as  Merimee  played  it,  with  irony  and  indifference 
in  reserve.  But  George  Sand  was  very  famous, 
and  Pagello  was  very  young.  His  point  of  view 
was  rather  that  of  the  medical  student  than  of  the 
professional  man.  He  felt  immensely  flattered, 
—dazzled  by  his  good  fortune,  and  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  half  afraid  of  it.  We  must  turn  once 
more  to  his  own  chronicle  of  his  emotions. 

"Yes,  yes,  there  is  no  denying  that  this  woman's 
genius  astonished  and  overwhelmed  me.  If  I 
had  been  in  love  with  her  from  the  first,  you  can 
imagine  how  much  more  deeply  I  was  in  love  with 
her  after  I  had  read  this  letter.  I  would  have 
given  anything  to  see  her  at  once,  throw  myself 
at  her  feet,  and  swear  undying  love  to  her.  The 
hour  was  too  late,  however ;  and  there  I  sat,  with 
the  sheet  of  paper  in  front  of  me,  reading  it  through 
again  with  the  same  enthusiasm.  And  yet,  when 
I  had  read  it  through  for  the  third  time,  certain 
phrases  in  the  letter,  and  the  general  tone  of  it, 
awakened  a  certain  indefinable  sensation  of  bitter- 

92 


The  Doctor's  Hesitation 

ness  which  seemed  to  rise  into  my  brain  from  the 
very  depths  of  my  heart. 

"  '  She  clothes  her  Epicureanism  with  a  delicate 
aureole  of  glory,'  I  said  to  myself.  '  She  depicts 
me  as  a  demi-god  and  dallies  with  me  after 
throwing  over  me  the  shirt  of  Nessus.  I  feel 
that  I  am  letting  myself  become  entangled  in  her 
net  to  no  good  purpose,  and,  thus  caught,  I  want 
to  know  :  Is  she  the  best  of  women  or  the  worst  ? 
And  then  I  thought  of  my  professional  position. 
Just  qualified,  I  was  beginning  to  work  up  a 
practice,  and,  for  that  purpose,  professional 
knowledge  does  not  suffice.  Irreproachable 
moral  conduct  is  also  requisite.  And,  finally,  I 
remembered  Alfred  de  Musset.  He  was  young, 
seriously  ill,  a  foreigner  ;  he  had  confided  himself 
to  my  care,  and  he  relied  upon  my  friendship. 
These  reflections  troubled  me,  and,  as  I  held  my 
head  in  my  hands,  I  seemed  to  feel  my  brain 
flying  to  and  fro  like  the  weaver's  shuttle." 

The  doctor  then  looked  for  guidance  to  the 
portrait  of  his  dead  mother.  She  had  often 
warned  him  that,  if  he  were  immoral,  he  would  be 
unhappy.  He  lay  awake  all  night,  thinking  of 
that ;  and  at  ten  o'clock  he  went,  as  usual,  to  visit 
his  patient.  Alfred  de  Musset  was  better,  and 
was  alone.  Agitated  by  the  conflicting  impulses 
of  desire  and  duty,  Pagello  did  not  venture  to 
inquire  where  George  Sand  was.  But  then — 

"  Suddenly  the   door  at  which  I  was   looking 

93 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

opened,  and  George  Sand  appeared.  Gloves  of 
rare  whiteness  were  on  her  little  hands.  Her 
dress  was  of  brown  satin,  and  she  wore  a  small 
plush  hat  with  a  beautiful  waving  ostrich  feather, 
and  a  Cashmere  shawl  with  a  large  arabesque 
pattern  in  the  best  and  most  refined  French  taste. 
I  had  never  before  seen  her  dressed  so  elegantly  ; 
and  I  had  not  recovered  from  my  surprise  when 
she  approached  me  with  charming  grace  and  ease, 
and  said,  '  Signor  Pagello,  I  have  some  shopping 
to  do,  and  should  be  glad  of  your  company,  if  it 
would  not  inconvenience  you  to  come  with  me.' ' 

Pagello,  of  course,  could  only  say  that  he  would 
be  delighted.  They  said  good-bye  to  Musset,  and 
went  out  together. 

"  Outside  I  felt  that  I  could  breathe  more  freely, 
and  I  spoke  with  greater  ease  and  fluency.  She 
told  me  on  what  terms  she  had,  for  several 
months,  been  living  with  Alfred,  and  how  many 
reasons  she  had  to  complain  of  him,  and  that  she 
had  made  up  her  mind  not  to  return  to  France  in 
his  company.  Then  I  recognised  my  fate,  and 
felt  neither  glad  nor  sorry,  but  walked  into  the 
abyss  with  my  eyes  shut.  I  spare  you  the  account 
of  my  long  conversation  with  George  Sand,  as 
we  walked  to  and  fro,  for  three  hours,  on  the 
Piazza  San  Marco.  We  talked  as  everybody 
talks  in  such  a  case  ;  we  conjugated  all  the  moods 
of  the  verb  *  to  love.'  But,  after  three  weeks  had 
elapsed,  more  grave  events  occurred." 

94 


CHAPTER   X 

How  Alfred  de  Musset  was  told — His  own  version  of  the  story — 
The  improbabilities  in  it — Pagello's  version — Musset's  de- 
parture— His  farewell  letters. 

THOUGH  doubts  afterwards  recurred,  Alfred  de 
Musset  seems  to  have  been  successfully  persuaded 
at  the  time  that  the  love  scene  which  he  believed 
himself  to  have  witnessed  was  the  hallucination  of 
a  disordered  brain.  But  love  scenes  were  never- 
theless being  enacted  behind  his  back  if  not  before 
his  eyes.  It  was  only  a  question  whether  he 
should  be  told,  or  should  be  left  to  discover  for 
himself,  that  there  had  been  a  fresh  shuffling  of 
hearts  while  he  lay  delirious  or  unconscious. 

In  a  letter  from  George  Sand  to  Pagello, 
published  by  M.  Paul  Marieton  in  Une  Histoire 
cf Amour,  we  see  that  question  examined,  at 
great  length,  in  all  its  bearings.  It  would  have 
been  the  wiser  plan,  George  Sand  thinks,  to 
engage  a  room  in  some  other  hotel  and  receive 
her  new  lover's  visits  there.  But  that  has  not 
been  done ;  and  Alfred  already  suspects ;  and  his 
suspicions  will,  in  a  day  or  two,  become  certainties  : 
"  A  glance  exchanged  will  be  enough  to  make 
him  mad  with  anger  and  jealousy." 

95 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Pagello,  it  seems,  has  begged  George  Sand  to 
be  generous  to  Alfred  and  forgive  him.  Evi- 
dently he  has  been  dragged  into  the  adventure 
against  his  better  judgment,  is  rather  ashamed  of 
the  double  part  which  he  is  playing,  and  would 
be  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  withdraw  from  it, 
as  Merime'e  withdrew  before  him.  But  he  has 
neither  MerimeVs  strength  of  character  nor  his 
gift  of  supercilious  irony.  He  cannot  resist. 
His  mistress  has  caught  him,  and  will  keep  him. 
Why  not  tell  Alfred  the  truth?  she  asks.  He 
will  weep,  of  course ;  but  then  he  will  calm  down 
and  go  away.  As  for  her  pardoning  him — that 
is  impossible.  He  has  committed  the  unpardon- 
able offence — he  has  told  her  that  he  has  ceased 
to  love  her.  She  is  willing  to  be  a  friend — a 
sister — to  him,  but  nothing  more.  That  sort  of 
magnanimity  is  not  in  her  character :  her  pride 
forbids. 

In  truth,  however,  it  was  not  her  pride  but  her 
passion  that  forbade.  The  barrier  of  her  pride, 
as  we  shall  see  later,  could  be  passed  when  passion 
ceased  to  guard  it.  But  passion  defended  it  now, 
like  an  angel  with  a  flaming  sword.  The  rest  of 
the  letter  is  a  veritable  hymn  to  Passion — the  cry 
of  Sappho  for  Phaon,  though  not  an  unavailing 
cry.  She  is  growing  old,  but  her  heart  is  not 
worn  out.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  passionate  and 
strong.  She  felt  assured  of  its  vigour  when  last 
Pagello  covered  her  with  his  caresses.  And,  as 
usual,  she  calls  God  to  witness. 

96 


"I  can  still  love" 

"Yes,  I  can  still  love.  Those  who  said  that 
I  could  not  lied.  None  but  God  can  say  to  me, 
'  You  shall  never  love  again.'  And  I  feel  that 
He  has  not  said  it — that  He  has  not  withdrawn 
the  celestial  fire  from  my  heart ;  and  the  greater 
my  aspirations  in  love,  the  greater  my  capacity 
for  loving  him  who  satisfies  them.  And  that  is 
you — yes,  you.  Remain  just  as  you  are  at 
present ;  do  not  alter.  There  is  nothing  in  you 
that  does  not  please  and  satisfy  me.  This  is  the 
first  time  that  I  have  loved  without  suffering 
agonies  at  the  end  of  three  days.  .  .  .  Oh,  when 
shall  I  be  alone  with  you  ?  You  shall  lock  me 
up  in  your  room,  and  take  the  key  when  you  go 
out,  so  that  I  may  see  and  hear  nothing — no  one 
— but  you. 

"  To  be  happy  for  a  year,  and  then  to  die  ! 
That  is  all  I  ask  from  God  and  from  you.  Good- 
night, dearest  Pietro  ;  my  troubles  cease  to  trouble 
me  when  I  am  with  you.  And  yet  lying  is  always 
a  melancholy  business.  This  dissimulation  is 
odious  to  me.  This  love  of  mine  and  Alfred's — 
so  ill  rewarded,  so  deplorable — which  is  in  the 
agony  of  death,  and  can  neither  be  renewed  nor 
ended,  is  a  torture.  I  have  it  before  my  eyes  as 
an  evil  omen  for  the  future,  that  seems  to  say 
to  me,  'Look!  That  is  what  love  comes  to.' 
But  no,  no.  I  do  not  want  to  believe  that.  I 
want  to  place  all  my  hopes  and  all  my  trust  in 
you  alone,  and  to  love  you  in  spite  of  everything, 
and  in  spite  of  myself.  It  was  not  what  I  wished. 
G  97 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

But  you  have  compelled  me  to  do  it.     God  has 
willed  it.     Let  my  destiny  be  accomplished !  " 

So  the  question  still  remained :  Should  Alfred 
be  told,  or  left  to  find  out  for  himself?  It  is  not 
known  for  certain  how  they  settled  it.  There  is 
a  conflict  of  evidence.  Each  of  the  three  has 
told  a  different  story  ;  and  the  probability,  once 
again,  is  that  the  truth  is  divided  between  them. 

Alfred  de  Musset  declares  that  he  found  out. 
The  statement  is  contained  in  another  document 
dictated  to  his  brother  Paul,  and  recently  com- 
municated by  his  sister,  Madame  Lardin  de 
Musset,  to  M.  Maridton. 

He  had  had,  he  says,  an  "  explanation "  with 
George  Sand,  who  "  denied  with  barefaced 
effrontery  the  incidents  which  I  had  seen  and 
heard,  and  assured  me  that  it  was  a  hallucination 
of  my  delirium."  Later  in  the  evening,  seeing  a 
light  in  her  bedroom,  which  communicated  with 
his  own,  he  put  on  his  dressing-gown  and  went  in 
to  her.  She  was  writing  a  letter  on  her  knees  ; 
and,  as  he  entered,  he  saw  her  hide  it  in  the  bed. 
He  accused  her  of  writing  to  Pagello. 

"  She  flew  into  a  terrible  passion,  and  said  that, 
if  I  went  on  like  that,  I  should  never  leave 
Venice.  I  asked  her  how  she  would  prevent  me. 
'  By  locking  you  up  in  a  lunatic  asylum,'  was  her 
reply.  I  admit  that  I  was  frightened,  and  I  re- 
turned to  my  room  without  daring  to  answer  her." 

98 


Confession  of  Infidelity 

The  next  thing  that  happened  was  that  Musset 
heard  George  Sand  first  open  and  then  close  the 
window.  Evidently,  he  thought,  she  had  torn 
the  letter  up  and  thrown  the  fragments  into  the 
street.  He  went  downstairs  to  see  ;  but  George 
Sand  was  there  before  him,  in  her  petticoat  and 
shawl,  searching  for  the  lost  scraps  of  paper.  He 
laid  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  and  spoke  to  her. 
Her  conduct,  he  said,  proved  to  him  that  it  was, 
indeed,  to  Pagello  that  she  had  written.  And 
then — 

"  She  replied  that  I  should  not  sleep  in  my 
bed  that  night — that  she  would  have  me  arrested 
at  once  ;  and  she  ran.  I  followed  as  fast  as  I 
could.  Reaching  the  Grand  Canal,  she  jumped 
into  a  gondola,  calling  to  the  gondolier  to  go  to 
the  Lido  ;  but  I  had  leapt  into  the  gondola  too, 
by  her  side,  and  we  set  off  together.  She  did  not 
open  her  mouth  alL  the  time  we  were  on  the 
water.  Disembarking  at  the  Lido,  she  again 
began  to  run,  leaping  from  tomb  to  tomb  in  the 
Jewish  Cemetery.  I  followed,  leaping  as  she 
did.  At  last,  she  sat  down  exhausted  on  a  tomb- 
stone, and  began  to  cry  in  rage  and  annoyance. 
'  If  I  were  you,'  I  said,  *  I  would  abandon  an 
impossible  undertaking.  You  will  not  succeed  in 
getting  to  Pagello  without  me,  and  causing  me  to 
be  locked  up  as  a  lunatic.  Confess  now  that  you 

are   a  .'     'Well,    yes,   I   am,'  she   answered. 

'And  a  miserable  ,'  I  added.     And  then  she 

99 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

acknowledged  herself  defeated,  and  I  brought  her 
back  to  the  house." 

This  story  is  no  doubt  true  in  the  main  ;  but 
the  Mussetists  infer  too  much  from  it.  Its 
significance  can  be  measured  by  the  text  of  the 
letter,  which  was  recovered,  handed  to  Musset, 
and  found,  after  his  death,  among  his  papers.  It 
was  to  the  effect  that  he  had  had  a  relapse,  and 
had  again  been  behaving  like  a  madman,  and 
that  there  was  some  reason  to  suspect  that  he  had 
been  drinking.  Naturally  George  Sand  did  not 
wish  him  to  see  that  letter,  fearing  that  it  would 
provoke  him  to  violence.  Apparently,  when  he 
became  violent,  she  did  lose  her  temper,  and  did 
say  something  about  a  lunatic  asylum.  His 
behaviour  may  very  well  have  suggested  the 
exclamation.  But  no  dark  design  to  sequestrate 
her  lover  can  reasonably  be  deduced  from  an 
angry  woman's  hasty  words ;  and  it  is  not 
specially  probable  that  she  seized  that  occasion 
to  confess  her  infidelity.  In  that  particular  one 
may  fairly  suspect  that  Musset  embroidered  his 
narrative ;  and  one  finds  more  inherent  prob- 
ability in  the  theory  that  his  suspicions  were 
revived,  if  not  first  aroused,  by  what  he  heard 
from  his  friend  Alfred  Tattet. 

Tattet  was  a  rich  man,  the  son  of  a  stock- 
broker, not  a  man  of  letters  but  a  man  of  pleasure 
— an  amiable  and  cultivated  dandy — who  had 
often  been  Musset's  companion  in  his  hours  of 

100 


Adventures  among  the  Tombs 

dissipation.  Madame  Ddjazet,  the  celebrated 
actress,  was  his  mistress.  In  the  winter  of  1833- 
1834  he  took  her  to  Italy,  and  made  a  detour  to 
visit  Musset  an  George  Sand  at:  Venice.  >  His 
first  impression  ;  ams  to  have  been  that,  save  for 
Alfred's  illness,  a,,  was  well  with 'the  nonage*  :  £Je>, 
took  them  to  the  theatre,  and  he  wrote  a  re- 
assuring letter  about  them  to  Sainte-Beuve,  who, 
as  George  Sand's  "confessor,"  was  feeling 
anxious.  There  s  no  picture  in  that  letter  of  a 
nurse  sitting  on  a  doctor's  knee,  or  of  a  poet  in 
a  dressing-gown  pursuing  a  half-dressed  novelist 
among  the  tombstones  in  the  dark.  On  the 
contrary  :  "  Alfred  is  in  the  hands  of  a  very  devoted 
and  capable  young  man  who  looks  after  him  like 
a  brother,  having  taken  over  the  case  from  an  old 
ass  who  was  going  the  right  way  to  kill  him." 

It  would  seem,  however,  that  Tattet  presently 
became  aware  of  breaches  in   the   continuity  of 
Pagello's   professional   manner,    and   warned    his 
friend.     That  is  what  Madame  Tattet  afterwards 
told  M.  Clouard,  adding  that  Musset  first  wanted, 
in  his  blind  rage,  to  murder  George  Sand,  and 
then  proposed  to  challenge  Pagello  to  a  duel,  but 
that  Tattet  dissuaded  him.     A  later  letter  from 
George    Sand   to   Tattet  refers  to  the  incident, 
though  without  throwing  much  light  upon  it. 

41  I  thought  it  quite  right  and  proper,"  she  wrote 
on  August  24,  1838,  "that  you  preferred  your 
friend  to  me ;  and,  after  all,  you  rendered  me  a 

101 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

greater  service  than  that  of  keeping  my  secret, 
seeing  that  you  prevented  him  from  fighting,  and 
I  should  not  have  liked  to  pay  for  your  silence  by 
t)ie  sip^ljest  idtfop  of  his  blood." 

,:  i-I/.Musset  .was. persuaded  not  to  fight,  it  seems 
;V reasonable 'to  presume  that  he  was  also  persuaded 
that  Tattet  had  been  mistaken  ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  actual  and  definite  revelation,  super- 
seding all  suspicions,  was  made  to  him  in  the 
circumstances  described  by  Pagello  himself,  as 
reported  by  the  Illustrazione  Italiana.  Accord- 
ing to  that  story,  they  stood  by  his  bed,  and 
held  this  dialogue  :— 

"Doctor,"  George  Sand  began  coldly,  "do 
you  think  Alfred  is  strong  enough  to  stand  a 
shock  ?  " 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  What  did  you  say?" 
Pagello  asked. 

"Very  well.  I  am  going  to  speak  frankly. 
My  dear  Alfred,  I  am  no  longer  your  mistress. 
I  can  only  be  your  friend.  I  love  Dr.  Pagello." 

That  at  the  time  when  Madame  de  Musset, 
having  heard  of  Alfred's  illness,  which  Paul 
told  her  was  probably  "  some  kind  of  brain 
fever,"  was  running,  in  great  concern,  to  the 
office  of  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  to  try  to 
get  news  from  Buloz,  and  was  sending  messages 
of  "  deepest  gratitude  to  Madame  Sand  for  all  the 
care  that  she  has  taken  of  you  !  " 

1 02 


Musset  leaves  Venice 

In  a  sense,  no  doubt,  she  deserved  the 
gratitude — or  some  of  it.  She  had  taken  care 
of  him,  and  she  had  nursed  him,  at  an  hour 
when  a  nurse  was  of  more  importance  to  him 
than'  a  mistress.  It  would  almost  seem  that  it 
was  a  case  of  conscience  with  her  to  do  so,  and 
that  she  desired  to  compensate  for  her  infidelities 
by  devoted  assiduity  of  service.  But  the  truth 
was  out.  There  was  nothing  for  Alfred  to  do 
except  to  pack  his  boxes  and  depart. 

He  had  been  violent ;  but,  at  the  last,  he 
accepted  the  situation  calmly.  It  was  a  situation 
which  he  had  provoked,  and  he  knew  it ;  and  he 
was  young  and  weak  and  ill.  We  may  take 
it  that  he  was  half  hypnotised  by  George  Sand's 
talk,  and  that  he  felt  too  feeble  to  resent  or 
resist  the  inevitable.  She  and  the  doctor  could 
always  throw  in  his  teeth  the  fact  that  they  had 
saved  his  life,  compelling  him  to  temper  jealousy 
with  gratitude.  He  could  hardly  even  leave 
them,  shaking  the  dust  from  off  his  feet.  But 
go  he  must.  His  only  relief  was  in  escape. 

He  escaped  towards  the  end  of  March,  sending 
George  Sand  this  letter  : — 

"  Farewell !  However  much  you  hate  me — 
or  however  indifferent  you  feel  to  me — still,  if 
the  good-bye  kiss  that  I  gave  you  to-day  is  the 
last  that  I  am  ever  to  give  you,  you  must  know 
that,  as  soon  as  I  had  stepped  outside  your  door, 
with  the  thought  that  I  had  lost  you  for  ever,  I 

103 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

felt  that  I  had  deserved  to  lose  you,  and  that  no 
punishment  is  too  hard  for  me.  Even  if  you 
care  little  to  know  whether  your  memory  lingers 
with  me  or  not,  it  is  very  important  to  me, 
now  that  your  image  effaces  itself  in '  the 
distance,  to  tell  you  that  there  will  remain  no 
impure  thought  in  the  furrow  of  my  life  through 
which  you  have  passed,  and  that  he  who  could 
not  esteem  you  when  he  possessed  you  can  still 
see  that  fact  clearly  through  his  tears,  and  honour 
you  in  his  heart,  where  your  recollection  will 
abide  for  ever.  Farewell !  " 

To  which  George  Sand  replied,  in  a  note 
scrawled  hastily  and  handed  to  the  gondolier 
whom  she  kept  waiting  for  the  answer  : — 

"  No,  do  not  go  like  that.  You  are  not  well 
enough  yet,  and  Buloz  has  not  yet  sent  the 
money  which  you  need  for  Antonio's l  travelling 
expenses.  I  do  not  want  you  to  go  alone.  My 
God !  Why  should  we  quarrel  ?  Am  I  not 
always  your  brother  George,  your  good  friend  of 
former  times  ?  " 

That  note  seems  to  have  persuaded  him  to 
remain  for  another  day.  On  the  following 
morning  George  Sand  saw  him  off,  and  even 
travelled  a  certain  distance  with  him,  and  gave 
him  as  a  keepsake  a  pocket-book  and  diary,  with 

1  A  servant  engaged  to  accompany  Musset  on  the  journey 
back  to  Paris. 

I04 


A  Farewell  Letter 

autograph    dedications    from    both    Pagello   and 
herself. 

Having  crossed  the  Simplon,  he  wrote  to  her 
from  Geneva — a  strange  and  pathetic  letter 
which  shows  him  still  in  love,  still  taking  all 
the  blame  for  the  rupture,  still  acquiescing  in 
his  punishment  for  his  fault,  and  hypnotised,  as 
it  were,  into  an  abject  humility. 

"  DEAREST  GEORGE, — I  am  at  Geneva.  I  left 
Milan  without  having  had  a  letter  from  you. 
Perhaps  you  had  written ;  but  I  had  engaged 
my  seats  in  the  diligence  as  soon  as  I  arrived, 
and  chance  had  it  that  the  mail  from  Venice, 
which  usually  arrives  two  hours  before  the 
Geneva  diligence  starts,  was  late.  Please,  if 
you  did  write  to  me  at  Milan,  tell  the  Postmaster 
to  forward  your  letter  to  Paris.  I  want  it,  if  it 
is  but  two  lines.  Write  to  me  at  Paris.  When 
you  cross  the  Simplon,  George,  think  of  me.  It 
was  the  first  time  that  I  had  seen  the  spectacle 
of  the  everlasting  hills  rising  before  me  in  all 
their  power  and  calm.  I  was  alone  in  the 
carriage.  I  do  not  know  how  to  describe  my 
sensations ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  these 
giants  spoke  to  me  of  all  the  great  things  that 
the  hand  of  God  has  made.  '  I  am  only  a 
little  child,'  I  exclaimed  to  myself,  'but  I  have 
two  grown-up  friends,  and  they  are  happy.' ' 


105 


CHAPTER   XI 

The  three-cornered  love-duel — George  Sand's  letters  to  Musset 
describing  her  relations  with  Pagello  —  Pagello's  letter  to 
Musset — Storms  in  the  "faux  manage" — Remonstrances  of 
Pagello's  cast-off  mistresses — And  of  his  father — George  Sand 
and  Pagello  attend  public  worship  and  pray  together — George 
Sand  decides  that  Pagello  shall  take  her  to  Paris. 

IN  spite  of  Mussel's  departure,  the  three-cornered 
love-duel  continued,  though,  for  a  time,  it  could 
only  be  carried  on  by  correspondence.  There 
are  a  number  of  letters  in  which  we  may  try  to 
read  the  minds  of  the  three  lovers,  though  the 
psychology  is  hard  to  realise  in  these  saner  and 
more  level-headed  days.  The  classical  saying 
that  "love  is  a  kind  of  madness"  was  never 
more  true  than  in  the  Romantic  period. 

A  partial  clue  to  George  Sand's  proceedings 
may  perhaps  be  found  in  a  letter  to  Boucoiran. 
Her  son's  tutor  was  the  confidant  whom  she 
generally  selected  when  she  felt  moved  to  con- 
fess that  her  embraces  threatened  to  be  fatal  to 
her  lovers.  She  had  already  volunteered  the 
confession  in  the  case  of  Jules  Sandeau.  "  I 
am  killing  him,"  she  had  written  ;  and  she  had 
also,  as  we  have  seen,  reported  his  answer 
that  that  was  the  death  he  wished  to  die. 

106 


George  Sand's  Admissions 

And   now,  mutatis   mutandis,    the    confession    is 
repeated. 

"  Alfred,"  she  writes,  "  has  left  for  Paris  without 
me,  and  I  am  going  to  remain  here  a  few  months 
longer.  You  know  the  reasons  of  our  separation. 
Every  day  that  passed  made  it  more  necessary, 
and  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  him  to 
travel  with  me  without  the  risk  of  a  relapse.  His 
chest,  which  is  still  very  delicate,  obliged  him  to 
abstain  completely  from  all  excesses ;  but  the 
excited  condition  of  his  nerves  rendered  the 
privation  intolerable  to  him.  We  have  had  to 
make  our  arrangements  with  a  view  to  removing 
these  risks  and  distresses,  and  to  part  as  soon 
as  we  could.  He  was  still  very  delicate  to 
undertake  so  long  a  journey,  and  I  am  rather 
uneasy  in  my  mind  as  to  how  he  will  stand  it. 
But  he  was  doing  himself  more  harm  by  staying 
than  by  going,  and  every  day  that  he  spent  wait- 
ing to  get  better  retarded  instead  of  accelerating 
his  recovery." 

It  is  a  grim  admission,  though  no  doubt  it 
tells  a  part  of  the  truth.  George  Sand  could 
scarcely  be  expected  to  add  that  Pagello  was 
handsome  and  ardent,  and  that  her  own 
necessities  were  imperious,  though  that  is  what 
one  easily  reads  between  the  lines. 

Nothing  is  more  evident  than  that  George 
Sand  never  loved  Pagello  quite  as  she  had  loved 

107 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Musset.  There  was  no  reason  why  she  should, 
and  there  were  many  reasons  why  she  should  not. 
The  doctor  was  not  exactly  a  fool,  as  Musset's 
partisans  pretend.  He  was  a  good  doctor,  and 
capable  of  becoming  a  better  one.  But,  though 
able,  he  was  commonplace.  He  had  no  gifts 
except  those  for  which  the  exercise  of  his  pro- 
fession called.  In  the  city  of  palaces  and 
gondolas  a  certain  illusion  was  possible  ;  but  only 
the  illusion  to  which  one  resigns  oneself,  taking 
a  certain  temperate  delight  in  it,  but  at  the  same 
time  recognising  it  for  what  it  is.  Between  his 
soul  and  the  soul  of  a  woman  of  genius  there 
could  be  no  transcendental  link. 

George  Sand  knew  that,  and  practically  said 
as  much  in  the  declaration  of  love  quoted  in  the 
last  chapter.  "  No  doubt  I  am  deceived,  but 
please  do  not  undeceive  me,"  is  a  fair  summary 
of  the  substance  of  that  document,  in  which  she 
avowed  that  she  largely  depended  for  her  decep- 
tion upon  the  fact  that  she  and  Pagello  spoke 
different  languages.  Of  a  truth  it  was  a  strange 
alliance  that  was  thus  contracted ;  and  the  triumph 
of  her  personality  may  be  said  to  have  reached 
its  zenith  when  she  succeeded  in  persuading 
Musset  to  give  it  his  blessing.  We  have  one 
of  her  letters  in  which  she  reminds  him  that  he 
did  so,  recalling  the  solemn  emotions  experienced 

''when  you  extorted  from  him  his  confession 
of  his  love  for  me,  and  he  swore  to  you  that  he 

108 


Ecstasies  of  Romanticism 

would  make  me  happy.  Ah !  what  a  night  of 
enthusiasm  it  was  when  you  made  us  clasp  hands, 
in  spite  of  ourselves,  saying,  '  You  love  each 
other,  and  you  both  love  me ;  you  have  saved 
me,  body  and  soul.' ' 

All  that  is  most  fantastic  in  the  ecstasies  of 
Romanticism  is  in  that  exclamation ;  and  the 
succeeding  incidents  of  the  story  follow  like  a 
conclusion  from  its  premises.  The  soul  and  the 
senses  are  drawing  George  Sand  in  opposite 
directions.  Both  her  lovers  are  necessary  to 
her,  though  for  different  reasons  ;  and  her  heart 
follows  the  lover  whom  she  has  turned  away. 

That  fact  appears  in  the  correspondence  from 
the  first.  We  have  a  glimpse  of  it  in  a  letter  to 
the  faithful  Boucoiran. 

"  I  suspect  we  shall  become  lovers  again. 
We  exchanged  no  promises  indeed ;  but  we 
shall  always  love  each  other,  and  the  sweetest 
moments  in  our  lives  will  be  those  which  we 
shall  pass  in  each  other's  company." 

We  have  more  than  a  glimpse  of  it  in  the 
letters  to  Musset  himself.  He  left  Venice,  it 
will  be  remembered,  on  March  29,  and  already,  on 
April  3,  George  Sand  is  writing : — 

"  Do  not  be  uneasy  about  me.  I  am  as  strong 
as  a  horse.  But  do  not  expect  me  to  be  gay  and 

109 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

tranquil  in  my  mind.  That  will  not  happen  yet 
awhile.  Ah !  who  will  look  after  you,  and  whom 
shall  I  have  to  look  after  ?  Who  will  feel  the  need 
of  me,  and  to  whom  shall  I  be  willing  to  give  my 
care  in  the  future  ?  How  shall  I  exist  without 
the  happiness  and  the  distress  that  you  caused 
me?" 

And  then,  on  April  1 5  :— 

"  Do  not  believe,  Alfred,  do  not  believe  that 
I  can  be  happy  with  the  thought  that  I  have  lost 
your  heart.  Whether  I  was  your  mistress  or  your 
mother  matters  little.  Whether  it  was  love  or 
friendship  that  I  inspired — whether  I  was  happy 
or  unhappy  with  you — all  those  considerations 
have  no  bearing  on  my  present  state  of  mind. 
I  know  that  I  love  you  now,  and  that  is  all." 

And  then  again  : — 

"Why  is  it  that  I  who  would  have  given  all 
the  blood  in  my  veins  to  secure  you  one  night 
of  tranquillity  and  repose  have  become  for  you 
a  torment,  a  scourge,  a  spectre  ?  When  these 
terrible  recollections  assail  me — and  at  what  hour 
do  they  leave  me  in  peace  ? — I  am  nearly  driven 
mad,  and  drench  my  pillow  with  my  tears.  I 
hear  your  voice  calling  me  in  the  silence  of  the 
night.  Who  is  there  to  call  me  now  ?  For  whom 
shall  I  need  to  keep  watch  and  vigil  ?  To  what 

1 10 


Anti-climax 

purpose  shall  I  employ  the  vigour  which  I  had 
stored  up  for  you,  and  which  is  now  turned 
against  myself?  Oh,  my  child,  my  child!  How 
I  need  your  tenderness  and  your  forgiveness ! 
Do  not  speak  to  me  of  my  own  forgiveness  ! 
Never  tell  me  that  you  have  wronged  me ! 
What  do  I  know  of  that  ?  I  remember  nothing 
about  it  except  that  we  were  very  unhappy 
and  that  we  parted.  But  I  know — I  feel — that 
we  shall  love  each  other  until  the  end  of  our 
lives." 

It  is  the  voice  of  passion,  loud  and  unmistak- 
able. The  picture  which  we  should  draw,  if  such 
utterances  were  our  only  evidence,  would  be  that 
of  a  deserted  mistress,  eating  out  her  passionate 
heart  in  solitude.  But  we  know  better ;  the 
letters  themselves  tell  us  better.  The  end  of 
the  appeal  comes  as  a  shocking  anti-climax ; 
and  Musset  must  have  felt  something  akin  to 
a  cold  douche  when  he  read  on  and  found  that 
the  evocation  of  tender  memories  only  led  up  to 
this  : — 

"  I  am  living  very  nearly  alone.  Pagello 
comes  home  to  dinner  with  me.  I  pass  the 
most  agreeable  moments  of  my  day  in  talking 
to  him  about  you.  He  is  a  man  of  such  delicate 
sentiment,  and  so  good.  He  understands  my 
melancholy  so  well.  He  respects  it  so  re- 
ligiously." 

ui 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Musset,  one  imagines,  hardly  knew  what  to 
make  of  it  all.  He  had  supposed  that  every- 
thing was  over  between  them ;  and  he  had 
plunged  into  his  usual  dissipations,  trying  vainly 
to  forget.  He  begged  George  Sand  not  to  re- 
mind him  of  the  past,  and  yet  he  took  a  morbid 
pleasure  in  dwelling  on  it.  He  wrote  again  to 
thank  her  for  her  friendship,  and  to  bless  her 
for  her  influence,  which  he  declared,  perhaps 
untruly,  had  given  him  the  courage  to  abandon 
his  dissolute  life.  But  he  also  accepted  the 
situation,  and  did  not  try  to  alter  it,  writing  in 
praise  of  his  rival :  "  When  I  saw  that  fine  fellow 
Pagello,  I  recognised  in  him  all  that  was  best  in 
myself,  but  pure  and  free  from  those  irreparable 
taints  by  which  my  own  better  nature  was 
poisoned.  That  is  how  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  best  for  me  to  go."  And  finally  he 
says : — 

"  I  am  going  to  turn  it  all  into  a  novel.  I 
should  very  much  like  to  write  the  story  of  our 
relations.  It  seems  to  me  that  that  would  cure 
me,  and  give  my  heart  back  its  courage.  I  should 
like  to  build  an  altar  to  you,  though  it  were  with 
my  bones." 

Reading  these  letters  now,  we  can  see  that 
what  happened  was  only  what  was  bound  to 
happen — that  the  heart  was  awaiting  the  satiety 
of  the  senses  in  impatience.  George  Sand  seems 

112 


Honeymoon  with  Pagello 

to  have  suspected  as  much  from  the  beginning ; 
and  no  doubt  Pagello  came  to  suspect  it  also 
towards  the  end.  To  contemporary  spectators  at 
Venice,  however,  nothing  of  the  kind  can  have 
been  visible.  All  that  they  saw  was  two  young 
people,  apparently  very  well  pleased  with  each 
other,  setting  up  a  "faux  manage"  and  con- 
ducting it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  it  a  model 
to  all  who  would  do  likewise. 

The  lovers  began,  after  the  approved  fashion, 
with  a  honeymoon  journey,  wandering  away  up 
into  the  Alps,  roughing  it  in  humble  country 
inns  with  the  buoyant  enthusiasm  of  their 
youth,  unwilling  to  return  till  all  their  money 
was  spent.  George  Sand  had,  she  tells  us, 
only  seven  centimes  in  her  pocket  when  she 
and  the  doctor  returned  to  Venice  to  set  up 
housekeeping. 

They  were  braving  public  opinion,  and  they 
were  made  to  feel  it.  Pagello  at  any  rate  felt  it, 
even  if  George  Sand  did  not.  He  was  a  con- 
ventional, though  not  a  moral,  man,  brought  up 
to  regard  appearances  as  a  physician  must,  not 
accustomed,  in  matters  of  gallantry,  to  let  his 
right  hand  know  what  his  left  hand  did.  As  for 
Romanticism,  he  hardly  knew  even  the  word 
until  George  Sand  taught  him  to  lisp  it ;  and  now 
he  found  himself  dragged  into  the  Movement, 
and  exploited,  prompted  to  ecstasies  alien  from 
his  nature,  taught  to  mumble  mystic  formulae 
about  "our  love  for  Alfred,"  and  stimulated  to 

H  113 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

write  bad  verses  about  lagoons  and  gondolas,  and 
the  moon  and  stars. 

"  No  more  of  melancholy  thoughts  ! 

To  the  open  sea  we'll  hie. 
The  lagoons  are  beautiful  to-night ; 
The  moon  is  in  the  sky. 

She  will  be  jealous  ;  draw  your  veil, 

And  hide  your  eyes  so  bright. 
For  you  are  fresh,  and  young,  and  fair  ; 

Laugh  and  make  love  to-night." 

That  was  Dr.  Pagello's  barcarolle ;  and  the 
theme  which  it  celebrated  was  not  a  discreet 
intrigue  but  an  open  scandal.  His  mistress  had 
promised,  indeed,  that  he  should  lock  her  up  in 
his  apartments  so  that  no  one  but  himself  might 
ever  see  her ;  but  that  promise  was  not  kept. 
She  walked  abroad  with  him,  hanging  on  his 
arm,  and  there  was  trouble  of  various  kinds. 
Some  of  the  doctor's  friends  laughed  at  him,  and 
others  cut  him,  and  there  were  ladies  who  offered 
ironical  congratulations ;  but  "  George  Sand, 
with  that  keenness  of  perception  which  was 
characteristic  of  her,  saw  and  understood  it  all, 
and  when  she  observed  clouds  of  annoyance 
gathering  on  my  brow,  she  dissipated  them 
instantly  by  her  ready  wit  and  enchanting 
graces." 

Moreover,  the  doctor  had  a  past  from  which  it 
was  difficult  for  him  to  cut  himself  immediately 
adrift ;  and  one  may  perhaps  infer  something  as 

114 


Visit   to  Pagello's  Father 

to  the  nature  of  George  Sand's  attachment  to  him 
from  the  fact  that  the  discovery  of  his  embarrass- 
ments only  amused  her.  She  describes  him  in 
a  letter  as  "a  sentimental  Don  Juan  who  finds 
that  he  has  four  women  on  his  hands  at  once  " ; 
and  she  relates  how  one  of  the  four  called  to 
protest  against  this  new  liaison,  and  to  assert  her 
own  prior  claims  upon  the  doctor.  The  visitor, 
it  appears,  proceeded  to  violence,  first  "pulling  his 
hair  off  by  handfuls,  and  tearing  his  beautiful 
waistcoat,"  and  then  turning  upon  his  mistress, 
threatening  to  take  vengeance  with  a 
knife.  But  the  strangest  fact  of  all  is  that 
Musset  and  no  other  was  the  recipient  of  these 
confidences. 

Finally  there  was  trouble  with  the  doctor's 
family.  His  father,  who  lived  at  Castel- Franco, 
wrote  him  a  long  letter  of  remonstrance,  and 
ordered  his  brother  Robert,  with  whom  he  shared 
rooms,  to  seek  another  lodging ;  but  this  opposi- 
tion was  overcome.  Pagello  took  George  Sand 
to  see  the  old  man,  and  the  old  man  was 
conquered. 

"  He  received  me  stiffly,"  Pagello  says,  "but  he 
welcomed  George  Sand  with  the  most  courteous 
hospitality ;  and  after  having  discussed  French 
literature  with  her,  he  was  so  subjugated  by  her 
poetical  eloquence  that  he  evidently  thought, 
'This  deserter  of  the  paternal  hearth  is  not  so 
wrong  after  all.'  We  spent  an  hour  with  him, 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

and  then  went  by  way  of  Bassano  to  the  Grotto 
of  Parolini." 


Thus  one  storm  broke  and  passed,  and  the 
other  storm  was  averted ;  and  the  life  of  the 
"faux  manage "  became  tranquil,  and  almost 
humdrum. 

The  lack  of  pence  vexed  the  lovers  at  first. 
George  Sand's  remittances  did  not  arrive 
punctually ;  and  the  letters  in  which  she  tried 
to  stimulate  her  paymasters  to  activity  represent 
her  as  sleeping  on  the  floor  because  she  cannot 
afford  to  buy  a  bed.  Probably,  however,  that  is 
exaggeration  with  a  purpose.  At  all  events,  the 
remittances  did  arrive  after  a  delay  ;  and  of  course 
Pagello  had  his  fees.  He  may  have  lost  some  of  his 
patients,  but  he  certainly  did  not  lose  them  all,  for 
we  know  that  he  went  his  morning  rounds  regularly 
as  usual.  The  economies,  therefore,  were  of  the 
tolerable  order.  If  George  Sand  did  the  cooking, 
that  was  only  because  she  was  proud  of  her  pro- 
ficiency in  the  art ;  and  it  is,  indeed,  recorded 
that  the  doctor,  until  the  end  of  his  days,  retained 
a  grateful  recollection  of  her  sauces. 

She  was  also  very  fond  of  hanging  pictures  and 
mending  furniture.  Visitors  sometimes  found  her 
sitting  on  the  floor,  nailing  chintz  to  the  chairs. 
And  she  worked  hard — seven  or  eight  hours  a 
day,  according  to  Pagello — writing  Lettres  d'un 
Voyageur  and  Jacques ;  and  she  went  for  ex- 
cursions among  the  Adriatic  Islands ;  and  she 

116 


Satiety  at  Last 

smoked  innumerable  cigarettes  and  drank  count- 
less cups  of  black  coffee  on  the  Piazza  San 
Marco ;  and  even  her  religious  duties  were 
not  neglected.  "  Sometimes,"  writes  Pagello's 
daughter,  Signora  Antonini,  "  George  Sand 
attended  church  with  my  father.  There,  on 
her  knees  before  Him  who  welcomes  all  and 
pardons  everything,  she  used  to  bury  her  face  in 
her  hands  and  weep." 

Yet  the  hour  of  satiety  was  already  drawing 
near.  Pagello  did  not  understand — or  understood 
but  dimly.  To  him,  we  may  take  it,  George 
Sand  appeared  to  be  the  type  of  woman  described 
by  M.  Paul  Bourget,  in  his  Physiologic  de 
I  Amour  Mo  derm,  as  "  pot-au-feu  cantharide" 
But  though  she  was  that,  she  was  also  more 
than  that.  She  could  play  that  part  for  a 
season  ;  but  she  was  bound,  in  the  end,  to  throw 
it  up,  because  it  did  not  suit  her.  She  was  a 
Romantic ;  and  her  life  with  Pagello,  though  it 
might  be  romance,  was  not  Romanticism.  So 
presently  we  find  her  letters  to  Musset  complaining 
of  Pagello's  limitations. 

Pagello  is  "an  angel  in  his  sweetness,  his  good- 
ness of  heart,  and  his  devotion  to  me."  But  that 
does  not  suffice.  "  I  had  accustomed  myself  to 
enthusiasm,  and  sometimes  I  feel  the  want  of 
it."  Nor  is  that  all.  "  The  worthy  Pietro  has 
not  read  Ltlia,  and  I  don't  suppose  he  would 
understand  a  word  of  it,  if  he  did."  Pagello  is 
not  suspicious — that  is  a  great  thing.  But  George 

117 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Sand  "wants  to  suffer  for  someone,"  and  she  is 
forming  this  strange  aspiration  :  "  Oh  !  why  cannot 
I  live  with  both  of  you,  and  make  you  both  happy, 
without  belonging  exclusively  to  either?"  More- 
over, she  inoculates  Pagello  with  a  similar  mysticism, 
and  induces  him  to  write  : — 

"  DEAR  ALFRED, — We  have  not  written  to  each 
other  before — perhaps  because  neither  of  us  liked 
to  be  the  first  to  do  so.  But  that  omission  in  no 
way  militates  against  the  mutual  affection  which 
will  always  unite  us  by  a  sublime  tie  incompre- 
hensible to  the  rest  of  the  world." 

The  end  was,  indeed,  obviously  near  when 
letters  of  that  sort  were  in  the  post ;  and  Pagello 
tells  us  how  it  came. 

"  In  the  month  of  August  she  told  me  that  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  for  her  to  go  and  spend 
some  time  in  Paris.  The  school  holidays  were 
approaching.  Her  two  children  were  coming 
home  from  school,  and  it  was  her  custom  to 
take  them  to  La  Chitre  and  spend  the  autumn 
with  her  husband.  At  the  same  time  she  ex- 
pressed a  great  desire  that  I  should  accompany 
her,  and  that  we  should  return  to  Paris  together. 
I  was  upset,  and  I  told  her  that  I  would  take  until 
the  following  morning  to  think  the  matter  over. 
I  perceived  on  the  instant  that  I  should  go  to 
France,  and  that  I  should  return  without 
her;  but  I  loved  her  beyond  everything,  and 

118 


Return  to  Paris 

I  would  have  faced  a  thousand  annoyances 
rather  than  allow  her  to  take  so  long  a  journey 
alone. 

"  I  arranged  my  affairs  as  best  I  could,  so  as  to 
get  a  little  money  together.  On  the  following 
day  I  said  that  I  would  accompany  her,  but  that 
I  insisted  upon  living  alone  in  Paris,  and  did  not 
wish  to  be  obliged  to  go  to  La  Chatre,  preferring 
to  profit  from  my  stay  in  the  great  capital  by 
walking  the  hospitals  and  pursuing  my  pro- 
fessional studies.  I  said  it  somewhat  sorrowfully, 
but  decidedly,  and  she  replied,  '  My  friend,  you 
shall  do  as  you  like  best.'  I  had  understood 
her,  and  she  had  understood  me.  From  that 
time  forwards  our  relations  were  only  those  of 
friends — at  least  upon  her  side.  For  my  own 
part,  I  was  quite  satisfied  to  be  only  her  friend  ; 
but  I  felt  that  I  was  still  in  love  with  her." 

So  they  packed  and  started.  It  is  recorded 
that  Pagello  had  to  sell  his  valuables  in  order  to 
pay  his  fare. 


119 


CHAPTER   XII 

Pagello  in  Paris — He  begins  to  feel  that  he  has  acted  foolishly — 
He  consoles  himself  with  the  contemplation  of  his  mother's 
portrait  and  the  recollection  of  her  moral  precepts — He  walks 
the  hospitals — George  Sand  sees  Musset  again — She  com- 
plains to  him  that  Pagello  is  jealous— Pagello  returns  to  Venice. 

THE  keen  air  of  the  boulevards  began  to  dissipate 
the  Venetian  haze. 

Paris,  it  is  true,  and  not  Venice,  was  the  centre 
of  the  Romantic  Movement ;  but  Paris,  even  at 
the  height  of  its  most  absurd  enthusiasms,  never 
quite  loses  its  power  of  raillery.  And  now  Paris 
was  laughing,  and,  indeed,  had  something  to 
laugh  at.  Parisians  had  no  motive  for  taking 
the  Venetian  adventure  seriously,  and  it  struck 
them  as  comic.  In  particular  Pagello,  brought 
to  Paris  as  a  sort  of  living  trophy  of  George 
Sand's  victories,  struck  them  as  a  comic  figure. 
Some  of  them  grinned  broadly,  and  others  smiled 
ironically.  The  handsome  romantic  hero,  flounder- 
ing through  the  French  language,  felt  "out  of  it" 
in  the  company  of  the  wits.  At  Venice  he  had 
been  esteemed  a  Don  Juan  ;  but  at  Paris  he  was 
regarded  as  a  barber's  block.  He  began  at  once 
to  feel  uncomfortable,  and  George  Sand  began  to 
feel  uncomfortable  too. 

120 


Pagello  in  Paris 

Her  sensations  at  this  stage,  we  may  take  it, 
were  pretty  much  those  of  the  man-about-town 
who  has  got  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  barmaid 
when  the  hour  strikes  for  introducing  the  barmaid 
to  the  ladies  of  his  family.  Such  a  one  then 
realises  that  to  take  the  barmaid  away  from  the 
bar  is  like  tearing  a  picture  roughly  from  its 
frame — that  she  depends  for  her  attractions  on 
her  alcoholic  environment  —  that  in  a  strange 
environment  she  soon  ceases  to  be  attractive. 
His  friends  assisting,  he  seeks  a  way  out  of 
the  entanglement,  even  at  the  cost  of  drawing 
a  cheque  for  the  cash  equivalent  of  his  affections. 
And  the  barmaid,  of  course,  and  very  naturally, 
feels  hurt.  It  is  not  her  fault  that  she  is  what 
she  is,  or  that  the  man-about-town  has  been 
deceived  by  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  paid 
his  court  to  her.  She  divines  her  mistake  before 
she  is  willing  to  acknowledge  it,  and  she  weeps. 

The  parallel  is  almost  exact.  George  Sand 
was  a  very  close  feminine  analogue  to  the  man- 
about-town.  Pagello's  position  in  the  Romantic 
circle  bears  a  very  close  resemblance  to  that  of 
the  barmaid  cut  adrift  from  familiar  moorings 
and  launched  in  the  strange  waters  of  a  lady's 
drawing-room.  She  was  ashamed  of  him,  yet 
anxious  to  "  let  him  down  gently."  He  was  un- 
easy, yet  hesitated  to  act  upon  his  impulses.  He 
saw  the  end  coming  before  it  came,  and  he  wept. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  July  that  the  lovers  left 
Venice  to  cross  the  Simplon ;  and  from  Milan 

121 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Pagello  wrote  to  his  father.  The  old  man 
had  reproached  him  for  ruining  his  career, 
and  (incidentally)  for  violating  the  moral  code 
of  Christianity.  The  son  refused  to  excuse 
himself,  but  he  said  : — 

"  I  have  now  reached  the  last  stage  of  my 
madness,  and  I  must  go  through  it,  as  I  went 
through  the  other  stages,  with  my  eyes  shut. 
To-morrow  I  start  for  Paris,  where  I  shall 
leave  Madame  Sand,  and  whence  I  shall  return 
to  embrace  you  and  be  worthy  of  you.  I  am 
young,  and  I  shall  be  able  to  repair  the  damage 
done  to  my  career.  Do  not  cease  to  love  me, 
but  write  to  me  at  Paris." 

So  they  crossed  the  pass  from  Domo  d'Ossola  to 
Brieg,  and  drove  down  the  valley  of  the  Rhone, 
and  diverged  at  Martigny  to  visit  the  Chamonix 

glaciers,  and  proceeded  to  Geneva. 
% 

"The  farther  we  went,"  says  the  doctor,  "the 
more  cold  and  circumspect  our  relations  became. 
My  sufferings  were  great,  but  I  tried  my  hardest 
to  hide  them.  George  Sand  was  a  shade 
melancholy,  but  much  more  independent  of  my 
society.  To  my  sorrow,  I  perceived  in  her  an 
actress  accustomed  to  play  her  part  in  comedies  of 
this  kind,  and  I  began  to  see  clearly  through  the 
veil  that  covered  my  eyes.  We  spent  six  or 
seven  days  at  Geneva,  and  then  took  our  seats 
in  the  diligence,  and  travelled  by  way  of  Cham- 

122 


Pagello's  Reflections 

pagne  and  Dauphine  to  Paris.  On  our  arrival, 
George  Sand  was  met  by  one  of  her  friends, 
M.  Bouquereau  [Boucoiran],  who  escorted  her 
to  her  apartment  on  the  Quai  Voltaire,  and  con- 
ducted me  to  the  Hotel  d'Orldans,  in  the  Rue 
Petits-Augustins,  where  I  engaged  a  small  room 
on  the  third  floor  for  i  franc  50  centimes  a  day." 

The  Parisian  garret  was  indeed  a  change  after 
the  lagoons  and  gondolas  of  Venice.  The 
doctor  tells  us  how  he  sat  down  in  his  despair, 
and  buried  his  head  in  his  hands,  reflecting  that 
he,  whose  passion  was  by  no  means  extinct, 
was  the  victim  of  a  caprice  that  had  already 
served  its  turn.  He  also  tells  us  how  he  un- 
packed his  mother's  portrait  from  his  trunk,  and 
covered  it  with  kisses,  and  sat  long  in  front  of 
it,  recalling  the  admirable  moral  precepts  which 
he  had  learnt  at  his  mother's  knee.  "All 
earthly  joys  that  are  incompatible  with  those 
precepts  will  make  you  unhappy,"  she  had  told 
him  ;  and  he  found  that  it  was  so. 

The  reverie  was  cut  short  by  a  knock  at  the 
door.  George  Sand  and  Boucoiran  had  come 
to  take  the  doctor  out  to  dinner.  He  says  that 
this  material  incursion  upon  his  meditations 
shocked  and  disgusted  him ;  but  that  is  as  it 
may  be.  The  dinner,  at  any  rate,  was  a  fare- 
well dinner.  Boucoiran  was  appointed  to  be 
the  doctor's  friend  and  mentor.  His  mistress 
was  going  to  La  Chatre  to  see  her  children. 

123 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Perhaps  she  would  meet  him  again  in  three 
months'  time — and  perhaps  not.  In  the  mean- 
time she  suggested  that  he  should  avail  himself 
of  the  opportunity  of  pursuing  his  medical  studies. 
"  A  mother,"  the  doctor  continues,  "  could  not  have 
spoken  to  me  with  a  more  reasonable  affection. 
I  was  touched  to  the  depths  of  my  soul."  And  she 
took  her  departure,  and  left  him  to  Boucoiran. 

Neither  here  nor  in  any  later  passage  in 
Pagello's  statement  is  Alfred  de  Musset's  name 
mentioned ;  but  Musset  was  none  the  less 
playing  his  part  in  the  drama,  and  not  playing 
it  only  by  correspondence.  George  Sand  had 
returned  to  Paris  with  the  full  intention  of  seeing 
him  again.  The  intention  could  reasonably  be  in- 
ferred from  some  of  the  extracts  from  her  letters 
to  him  already  given ;  and  there  is  another 
letter  in  which  she  is  absolutely  explicit. 

"At  what  date  are  you  going  to  Aix?  Ar- 
range so  as  to  let  me  know  where  you  will  be, 
in  order  that,  if  I  do  not  see  you  in  Paris,  I 
may  at  least  meet  you  somewhere  en  route." 

And  then  again  : — 

"  Yes,  we  shall  meet  in  August,  shall  we  not, 
whatever  happens  ?  Perhaps  you  will  be  in  love 
with  someone  else  by  that  time.  I  hope  so,  my 
child,  and  yet  I  have  my  fears.  Indeed  I  cannot 
read  my  own  heart  when  I  foresee  that.  If  only 
I  could  shake  the  hand  of  the  woman  who  loves 
you,  and  tell  her  what  care  she  must  take  of  you ! 

124 


Correspondence  with  Musset 

But  she  would  be  jealous,  and  would  say, 
'  Never  speak  to  me  of  Madame  Sand.  She  is 
a  wicked  woman/ ' 

Musset,  on  his  part,  wished  to  see  her,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  wished  that  he  did  not  wish  it. 
He  had  seriously  tried  to  forget  her ;  but  he  had 
made  the  mistake  of  keeping  her  acquainted 
with  his  attempts  to  do  so.  He  told  her,  for 
instance,  how  he  had  been  to  the  Opera,  and 
how  the  favours  of  some  dancing  girl  had  been 
pressed  upon  him,  and  how  signally  her  attempts 
to  distract  him  had  failed.  He  seems  to  have 
written  by  every  mail,  and  always  to  have  received 
an  answer  by  return  of  post ;  and  the  answers, 
even  when  their  tone  seemed  maternal,  were  like 
oil  poured  upon  the  flames.  So,  when  George 
Sand  reached  Paris,  the  inevitable  happened. 
Musset  vowed  that  he  must  see  her — though  it 
were  only  once,  and  only  to  say  good-bye.  As  soon 
as  he  had  seen  her  he  would  go.  There  should 
be  a  barrier  of  mountains  and  seas  between  them, 
and  he  would  never  again  return  to  France.  But 
she  must  accord  him  "  one  hour  and  one  last  kiss." 

She  meant  to  yield,  but  she  hesitated,  and  he 
had  to  appeal  again.  Was  she  afraid  of  hurting 
Pagello's  feelings  ?  Nonsense  !  And  then— 

"  George,  George,  if  you  have  a  heart,  consent 
to  meet  me  somewhere — in  your  rooms,  or  in 
mine,  or  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  or  in  the 
cemetery,  by  my  father's  grave.  It  is  there  that 

125 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

I  should  like  to  bid  you  good-bye.  Open  your 
heart  to  me  without  arriere-pensee.  Hear  me 
swear  that  I  shall  die  with  your  love  in  my 
heart.  One  last  kiss,  and  then  farewell !  What 
is  it  that  frightens  you  ?  Remember  that  sad 
evening  at  Venice  when  you  told  me  that  you 
had  a  secret.  You  thought  you  were  speaking 
to  a  silly,  jealous  lover.  No,  George,  you  were 
speaking  to  a  friend." 

Then  she  saw  him,  and  did  more  than  see 
him  ;  kissed  him,  and  did  more  than  kiss  him. 
Pagello  was  not  told,  and  it  was  understood 
that  it  was  to  be  for  the  last  time.  Only  they 
were  still  to  write  to  each  other — there  could  be 
no  harm  in  that.  So  Musset  started  for  Baden, 
and  began  writing  at  once.  A  "  salutary  balm," 
he  said,  had  been  poured  upon  his  wound  ;  and 
he  swore,  "by  my  youth  and  my  genius,"  that 
he  would  write  a  book  which  should  link  their 
names  in  a  joint  immortality  like  those  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  and  Abelard  and  Hdloise.  That 
would  be  "a  marriage  more  sacred  than  those 
solemnised  by  the  priest — the  chaste  and  im- 
perishable marriage  of  the  intelligence."  Future 
generations  should  recognise  in  it  "the  symbol 
of  the  One  God  they  worship."  For  the  rest, 
if  she  called  him  back,  he  would  come,  but, 
otherwise,  he  would  stay  away  for  ever. 

She  did  not  call  him  back — he  did  not  give 
her  time  to  do  so.  Within  a  fortnight  he  had  re- 

126 


The  Three-Cornered  Duel 

turned  without  waiting  to  be  summoned.  But,  in 
the  meantime,  George  Sand  had  fled  for  refuge 
to  Nohant  and  her  family,  leaving  Pagello  to  live  as 
he  liked  in  his  garret  at  i  franc  50  centimes  a  day. 
The  three-cornered  duel  was  now  indeed 
developing.  There  was  no  longer  any  pretence 
at  a  triangular  embrace.  The  three  combatants 
were  at  three-cornered  variance.  Pagello,  finding 
himself  at  once  neglected  and  laughed  at,  had 
become  jealous.  He  who  had  once  uttered 
mystic  sayings  about  "  sublime  links  incom- 
prehensible to  the  rest  of  the  world "  had  not 
only  conceived  suspicions  but  had  tried  to 
confirm  them  by  opening  letters  that  were  not 
addressed  to  him.  Musset  who  had  appealed 
so  eloquently  to  Pagello  to  make  George  Sand 
happy  was  now  openly  appealing  to  George 
Sand  not  to  consider  Pagello's  feelings. 

"  Perhaps  my  return  to  Paris  will  give  you  a 
shock,  and  perhaps  it  will  give  him  a  shock  too. 
I  confess  that  I  am  no  longer  in  a  state  to 
consider  his  or  anybody's  feelings.  If  he  suffers, 
very  well,  let  him  suffer — this  Venetian  who 
taught  me  to  suffer.  I  am  paying  him  back  the 
lesson  which  he  gave  me  with  a  master  hand." 

That  was  now  the  attitude  of  the  lovers 
towards  each  other  ;  while  George  Sand's  attitude 
was  almost  equally  unsatisfactory  to  both  of  them. 
Sitting  in  the  midst  of  her  family  at  Nohant,  she 
summoned  her  provincial  friends  to  pity  her  for 

127 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

her  emotional  entanglements,  but  making  no 
decided  attempt  to  cut  the  knot,  she  declared 
that  her  life  was  "  impossible,"  and  talked  of 
suicide.  "  When  I  have  informed  you  of  the 
state  of  my  brain,"  she  wrote  to  Boucoiran,  "  you 
will  agree  with  me  that  it  is  merely  indolence 
and  cowardice  on  my  part  to  try  to  live,  and  that 
I  ought  to  have  finished  with  it  long  ago."  But 
she  still  held  aloof  from  Musset,  though  she 
confided  to  him  that  she  was  discontented  with 
Pagello.  Pagello,  she  says,  "lost  his  head  as 
soon  as  he  set  foot  in  Paris"  ;  he  has  become 
"suspicious";  he  "picks  quarrels  about  nothing, 
like  a  German."  Whatever  George  Sand  does 
appears  to  "wound  and  irritate  him";  she 
herself  is  "hurt"  by  the  new  tone  of  his  letters. 
She  feels  that  he  "no  longer  has  faith  "  in  her— 
which  perhaps  is  not  surprising  ;  she  infers  that, 
with  his  faith,  his  love  has  also  disappeared  ;  and 
she  concludes : — 

"  I  shall  see  him  again  if  he  is  still  in  Paris.  I 
am  going  back  to  Paris  to  console  him  ;  but  not  to 
justify  myself,  and  not  to  try  to  detain  him.  And 
yet  I  did  love  him  very  sincerely  and  seriously— 
this  generous  man,  who  was  as  romantic  as  I  was, 
and  whom  I  believed  to  be  stronger." 

She  had  loved  him  once,  but  she  certainly  did 
not  love  him  now.  She  meant  him  to  go,  and 
she  proposed  not  merely  to  dismiss  him,  but  to 
pay  his  fare.  So  far,  he  had  been  living  on  the 

128 


Pagello  and  Buloz 

proceeds  of  the  sale  of  his  valuables  ;  he  had 
intended  to  supplement  his  resources  by  selling 
some  pictures  which  he  had  brought  from  Venice 
for  the  purpose.  They  were  not  readily  market- 
able, but  George  Sand  undertook  to  find  a 
purchaser.  She  failed  to  find  one,  but  pretended 
to  have  done  so,  and  paid  the  alleged  price — 
2500  francs — in  instalments  out  of  her  own  pocket. 

Pagello  waited  for  the  last  instalment,  but  did 
not  waste  his  time.  Boucoiran,  who  had  been 
appointed  to  look  after  him,  did  his  duty 
thoroughly.  He  took  the  doctor  to  the  Revue 
des  deux  Mondes  office,  and  introduced  him  to 
Buloz,  who  examined  him  carefully  through  his 
monocle,  and  then  gave  him  a  press  pass  to 
the  theatres.  He  also  took  him  to  the  prin- 
cipal hospitals  and  introduced  him  to  the  principal 
physicians,  who  received  him  with  every  courtesy, 
and  gave  him  every  facility  for  study.  He 
devoted  one  of  George  Sand's  instalments  of 
500  francs  to  the  purchase  of  a  case  of  surgical 
instruments,  and  made  himself  an  expert  in 
lithotrity.  Even  so,  he  says,  he  sometimes  felt 
sad  and  lonely  in  his  garret ;  but  at  such  hours 
"  the  portrait  of  my  mother  inspired  me  with 
words  of  inexpressible  consolation,  and  I  found 
courage  to  defy  my  poverty  and  the  black  gloom 
of  my  future." 

About  the  middle  of  October  George  Sand 
arrived,  and  handed  him  the  money  for  his 
journey  home. 

I  129 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  I  packed  my  baggage,  and,  two  days  later, 
I  went  to  George  Sand's  rooms,  where  Boucoiran 
was  waiting  for  me.  Our  farewells  were  silent. 
I  pressed  her  hand  without  daring  to  look  her  in 
the  face.  She  seemed  perplexed.  I  do  not  know 
whether  she  suffered,  but  my  presence  embarrassed 
her.  She  was  bored  by  this  Italian  who,  with 
his  simple  sound  sense,  broke  down  the  mysterious 
sublimity  with  which  she  was  accustomed  to 
envelop  the  fact  that  she  was  tired  of  her  amours. 
I  had  already  given  her  to  understand  that  I  had 
sounded  the  depths  of  her  heart,  and  found  it  full 
of  excellent  qualities,  but  marred  by  many  faults. 
This  discovery  of  mine  could  not  but  cause  her 
annoyance,  so  I  cut  the  visit  as  short  as  I  could.  I 
kissed  her  children,  and  took  the  arm  of  Boucoiran." 

It  was  over,  and  Pagello  passes  out  of  the  story 
— a  grotesque,  but  an  honest,  and  not  altogether 
unsympathetic  figure.  His  experiences  had  been, 
in  a  way,  an  education  to  him.  He  had  made  a 
fool  of  himself  and  he  knew  it.  The  atmosphere 
of  Romanticism  was  too  rare  for  him  ;  but  he  had 
had  to  breathe  it  in  order  to  discover  that  it  did 
not  suit  him.  Even  in  Italy — even  at  Venice- 
all  is  not  romance ;  there  is  a  Philistia  even  of 
the  lagoons.  The  doctor's  place  was  there,  as 
a  general  practitioner,  and  he  returned  to  it — but 
not  to  boast.  That  resolution  is  recorded  in  a 
farewell  letter  to  Musset's  friend,  Alfred  Tattet, 
who  had  shown  him  some  politeness. 

130 


Departure  of  Pagello 

"  Before  I  go,  my  good  friend,  I  send  you  a 
greeting.  I  beg  you  never  to  breathe  a  word 
about  my  amour  with  la  George.  I  have  no  wish 
to  avenge  myself.  I  depart  with  the  certainty 
that  I  have  behaved  as  an  honest  man.  That 
will  enable  me  to  forget  my  suffering  and  my 
poverty.  Good-bye,  my  angel !  I  will  write  to 
you  from  Venice.  Good-bye,  good-bye !  " 

So  he  departed,  and  eventually  prospered, 
achieving  a  great  reputation  for  his  skill  in 
lithotrity,  and  long  maintaining  the  silence  which 
he  had  imposed  on  himself.  He  was  calum- 
niated, but  he  did  not  reply.  The  Sandists  and 
the  Mussetists  fell  out,  and  pelted  each  other  with 
pamphlets,  and  the  air  was  dark  with  controversy. 
The  wrangle  was  conducted  without  reference  to 
Pagello's  feelings,  By  both  sides  alike  he  was 
held  up  to  contempt  and  ridicule.  But  he  acted 
on  the  old  Scottish  maxim  :  "  They  say  ?  What 
say  they?  Let  them  say."  Not  until  the  pro- 
tagonists were  dead  and  the  quarrel  belonged 
to  history,  did  he  permit  himself  to  speak  ;  and 
then  he  spoke  well  of  both  of  them,  and  even  told 
a  professional  lie  about  the  nature  of  his  rival's 
malady. 

If  he  was  a  fool,  he  was  also  a  gentleman. 
One  cannot  but  conclude  with  that  tribute  to  his 
memory. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Further  correspondence  between  George  Sand  and  Musset — He 
is  ill  and  asks  her  to  visit  him — She  wishes  to  renew  the  old 
relations  but  finds  him  unwilling  —  Sainte-Beuve  intercedes 
for  her  in  vain — She  cuts  off  her  hair  and  sends  it  to  Musset — 
She  also  sends  him  her  private  diary — The  renewal  of  love. 

THE  path  was  now  clear  for  Alfred  de  Musset. 
George  Sand  was  once  again  his  mistress — and 
yet  neither  of  them  was  happy.  They  Had  thought 
to  forgive  and  forget ;  but  jealousy  was  stronger 
than  love,  and  visions  of  Venice  rose  between 
them,  mocking  them.  At  once  we  find  George 
Sand  complaining  bitterly  of  Musset's  reproaches. 
"I  was  quite  sure,"  she  says,  "that  those  re- 
proaches would  be  heard  on  the  morrow  of  the 
happiness  which  we  had  dreamed  and  promised 
ourselves."  But  he  has  no  right  to  try  to  make 
her  lift  the  veil  from  her  past  relations  with 
Pagello,  and  it  is  her  duty  to  be  silent.  "  Do 
you  think,"  she  asks,  "that  I  should  have 
answered  him  if  he  had  questioned  me  about 
the  secrets  of  our  pillow  ? "  This  past  had 
"exalted"  him  "like  a  beautiful  poem"  during 
their  separation  ;  now  that  they  were  lovers  again, 
it  was  a  nightmare.  She  had  foreseen  that  it 
would  be  so.  Wherefore — 

132 


Musset's  Illness 

"  We  are  going  to  be  more  unhappy  than  ever. 
...  I  did  not  want  to  love  you  again.  I  had 
suffered  too  much  for  that.  Ah  !  if  I  were  a  mere 
coquette,  you  would  not  feel  so  miserable.  What 
I  ought  to  do  is  to  lie  to  you,  and  say,  *  I  did  not 
love  Pietro ;  I  never  was  his  mistress.'  Who 
would  there  be  to  prevent  you  from  believing  me  ? 
Your  pain  is  only  due  to  my  straightforwardness." 

Musset's  answer  is  humble,  yet  passionate. 
Never  mind  about  the  past !  He  loves  "  as  no  one 
has  ever  loved  before."  He  begs  her  pardon  on 
his  knees,  though  he  knows  he  does  not  deserve  to 
be  forgiven.  He  doubts  if  love  has  ever  given 
happiness.  And  he  is  ill — in  his  mother's  house. 
Can  she  not  come  and  see  him — when  his  mother 
is  out  ?  Some  mutual  friend — Papet  or  Rollinat 
— might  bring  her. 

She  is  moved,  and  thinks  it  might  be  arranged 
—provided  she  comes  in  disguise  :  "  Your  sister 
does  not  know  me  by  sight,  and  your  mother 
would  pretend  not  to  see  me.  I  could  pass  for 
a  sick-nurse."  Madame  Lardin  de  Musset  told 
M.  Maridton  that  she  actually  did  come,  dressed 
as  a  servant,  and  sat  up  all  night  at  his  bedside  ; 
and  when  he  recovered  he  returned  to  her,  in 
spite  of  the  warnings  of  Tattet  and  other  mutual 
friends,  and  sent  a  challenge  to  Gustave  Planche, 
whose  spiteful  comments  on  their  renewed  rela- 
tions had  reached  his  ears. 

Planche  denied  having  gossiped  as  reported, 
133 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

and  the  duel  did  not  take  place ;  but  fresh  cause 
for  gossip  was  very  quickly  given.  Their  re- 
union only  lasted  for  a  few  days.  A  proposal 
that  they  should  go  away  and  live  together  at 
Fontainebleau  fell  through.  They  went  away, 
but  separately — Musset  to  Montbard  in  Burgundy, 
George  Sand  to  Nohant.  This  time  they  both 
believed  that  all  was  really  over  for  ever,  and 
they  both  wrote  to  their  friends  to  that  effect. 
Musset  confided  in  Tattet,  and  George  Sand  in 
Boucoiran,  to  whom  she  wrote  from  the 
country : — 

"  I  am  getting  on  pretty  well.  I  have  my  dis- 
tractions, and  shall  not  return  to  Paris  until  I  am 
cured  and  strong  again.  It  is  wrong  of  you  to 
speak  to  me  as  you  do  of  Alfred's  proceedings. 
Say  nothing  about  him,  if  you  love  me,  and  rest 
assured  that  all  is  finally  over  between  us." 

"  For  ever"  in  this  case  meant  "for  a  week." 
At  the  end  of  the  week  George  Sand  was  back 
in  Paris,  more  in  love  than  ever,  determined  to 
see  Musset,  who,  on  his  part,  was  determined  to 
be  firm  and  to  refuse.  Accustomed  to  triumph, 
she  now  fell  into  despair,  and  became  capable  of 
desperate  acts.  She  cut  off  all  her  hair,  made  a 
parcel  of  it,  and  forwarded  it  to  her  lover ;  but 
though  he  wept  over  the  gift,  he  did  not  yield. 
The  persuasions  of  his  friends  overcame  the 
solicitations  of  his  mistress. 

134 


"Less  resigned  than  ever55 

She  then  haunted  the  studio  of  Delacroix,  who 
was  painting  a  portrait  of  Musset  for  the  Revite 
des  deux  Mondes,  and  Delacroix's  Journal  records 
his  impatience  at  her  lamentations.  She  also 
complained  to  Sainte-Beuve,  and  he  too  gave  her 
distress  less  attention  than  she  thought  that  it 
deserved.  She  accuses  him  of  neglecting  her 
because  he  has  let  two  days  pass  without  calling 
to  receive  her  confidences ;  but  she  proceeds  to 
confess  on  paper — 

"  I  am  less  resigned  than  ever.  I  go  out,  I 
seek  distractions,  I  shake  myself  out  of  my  lethargy, 
but  when  I  return  to  my  room  in  the  evening  I 
become  mad. 

"  Yesterday  my  legs  carried  me  in  spite  of  my- 
self, and  I  went  to  call  on  him.  Happily  I  did 
not  find  him  at  home.  I  know  that  he  is  cold 
and  angry  when  he  speaks  of  me.  All  that  I  fail 
to  understand  is  what  it  is  that  he  accuses  me  of, 
and  in  relation  to  whom.  This  injustice  is  devour- 
ing my  heart.  It  is  frightful  that  we  should 
separate  over  such  matters  as  these. 

"  And  not  a  word — nothing  to  show  that  he 
remembers  me.  He  grows  impatient,  and  laughs 
at  me  for  not  going  away.  Oh,  my  God !  Advise 
me  to  kill  myself.  That  is  all  that  is  left  for  me 
to  do." 

A  fresh  mood  succeeds.  George  Sand  is  now 
too  proud  to  write  to  Alfred ;  but  none  the  less, 

135 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

for  her  own  satisfaction,  she  must  pretend  to  write 
to  him.  So  she  begins  a  Journal  Intime,  and 
confides  her  troubles  to  that.  She  writes  that 
she  is  still  beautiful  in  spite  of  her  shorn  locks, 
and  that  she  is  tempted  to  go  to  Alfred's  door 
and  ring  his  bell  till  the  cord  breaks.  She  writes 
that  she  has  been  to  the  Theatre  des  Italiens, 
and  has  been  paid  many  compliments,  and  has 
been  indifferent  to  them.  She  appeals  to  God, 
and  even  proposes  a  bargain.  If  God  will  give 
her  back  her  lover,  she  will  go  to  church  regularly 
for  the  future — she  will  wear  out  the  altar  steps 
with  her  knees.  Then  she  relates  that  she  has 
called  on  all  her  literary  and  artistic  friends,  and 
consulted  with  them  about  love. 

"  Liszt  told  me  this  evening  that  only  God  was 
worthy  to  be  loved.  It  may  be  so,  but  it  is  very 
difficult  to  love  God  when  one  is  in  love  with  a 
man.  It  is  such  a  different  sort  of  love.  It  is 
true  that  Liszt  added  that,  in  all  his  life,  he  had 
never  felt  any  lively  sympathy  for  anyone  but 
M.  de  Lamennais.  He  is  a  lucky  man  is  that  little 
Christian!  I  saw  Heine  this  morning.  He  told 
me  that  one  only  loved  with  the  head  and  the 
senses,  and  that  the  heart  had  very  little  to  do 
with  the  matter.  At  two  o'clock  I  saw  Madame 
Allart.  She  told  me  that  one  must  be  cunning 
with  men,  and  pretend  to  be  angry  in  order  to 
win  them  back.  Sainte-Beuve  was  the  only  one 
who  did  not  hurt  my  feelings,  and  did  not  say 

136 


Indiscriminate  Confidences 

something  silly.  I  asked  him  what  love  was,  and 
he  replied,  *  Love  resides  in  tears ;  you  weep, 
and  therefore  you  love.'  Ah  yes,  my  poor  friend,  I 
love.  It  is  in  vain  that  I  call  anger  to  my  aid. 
I  love,  and  I  shall  die  of  love,  unless  God  performs 
a  miracle,  and  either  gives  me  literary  ambition 
or  makes  me  religious.  I  must  go  and  see  Sister 
Martha." 

It  is  characteristically  and  supremely  French. 
If  we  could  imagine  the  greatest  English  authoress 
of  the  day  (whoever  that  may  be),  with  a  similar 
past  behind  her,  discussing  the  state  of  her  heart 
in  the  office  of,  say,  the  Fortnightly  Review  with 
any  of  the  contributors  who  happened  to  be 
present,  reporting  progress  daily  to  the  editor, 
and  imploring  him  to  intercede  for  her,  and 
then  jumping  into  a  cab  and  driving  off  to 
ask  advice  from,  say,  Mr.  Paderewski,  Mr. 
Swinburne,  and  the  Countess  of  Warwick,  we 
should  have  an  approximately  exact  English 
parallel,  inadequate  only  because  insufficiently 
absurd.  But  George  Sand,  of  course,  could  no 
more  see  that  anything  that  she  did  was  absurd 
than  she  could  admit  that  anything  that  she  did 
was  wrong. 

She  proceeds  to  recall  the  memories  of  Venice. 
Musset  had  left  her,  but  at  least  he  wrote  to  her  ; 
and  she  vows  that  she  kissed  his  letters,  and 
watered  them  with  her  tears,  and  hid  them  in  her 
bosom  "when  the  other  was  not  looking."  And 

137 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

she  has  knelt,  shivering,  on  the  cold  pavements 
of  Parisian  churches,  and  prayed.  She  has  heard 
voices  in  answer  to  her  prayers.  "  Confess  and 
die,"  said  a  voice  in  the  Church  of  Saint  Sulpice. 
"Alas!"  she  comments,  "I  did  go  to  con- 
fession on  the  following  morning,  and  yet  I 
could  not  die."  She  is  condemned  to  live  and 
suffer. 

"Cruel  boy,  why  did  you  love  me  after  having 
hated  me?  What  mysterious  miracle  is  it  that 
is  worked  in  you  every  week  ?  What  is  the 
meaning  of  this  crescendo  of  dislike,  disgust, 
aversion,  fury,  and  cold  contemptuous  raillery  ? 
And  then,  of  a  sudden,  those  tears,  that  pain, 
that  ineffable  love  returning !  Torment  of  my 
life !  Accursed  love !  I  would  give  all  that  I 
have  if  it  might  but  come  back  for  a  day.  But 
never!  never  I  It  is  too  terrible.  I  cannot  believe 
it.  I  am  coming  to  you.  I  am  coming.  But  no. 
I  may  cry,  and  lament  aloud,  but  come  to  you  I 
must  not.  Sainte-Beuve  forbids." 

Sainte  -  Beuve,  one  gathers  from  this,  had 
refused  to  intercede  ;  but  presently  he  yielded  to 
pressure  and  entreaty,  and  conveyed  the  message, 
supporting  George  Sand's  suit  with  a  few  eloquent 
words  of  his  own.  But  all  in  vain.  This  was  the 
answer  which  he  received  : — 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,  my  friend, 
for  the  interest  which  you  have  been  good  enough 

138 


Fear  of  Public  Opinion 

to  take,  in  the  present  melancholy  circumstances, 
in  me  and  in  the  person  of  whom  you  spoke  to 
me  to-day.  It  is  no  longer  possible  for  me,  under 
any  pretext  whatsoever,  to  continue  any  sort  of 
relation  with  her,  whether  by  writing  or  other- 
wise. I  hope  that  her  friends  will  not  see  in  this 
decision  any  offensive  intention,  or  any  wish  to 
prefer  any  kind  of  accusation  against  her.  If  any- 
one should  be  accused  in  the  matter  it  is  myself, 
who,  in  unreasoning  weakness,  consented  to  visits 
which,  as  you  yourself  say,  were  fraught  with 
great  danger.  Madame  Sand  knows  perfectly 
well  what  my  present  intentions  are,  and  if  it  is 
she  who  has  asked  you  to  tell  me  not  to  see  her 
again,  I  confess  that  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand 
her  reasons  for  so  doing,  seeing  that,  no  longer 
ago  than  yesterday  evening,  she  was  emphatically 
refused  admission  to  the  house." 

So  that  attempt  came  to  nothing.  Musset 
consented  to  see  George  Sand — but  nothing 
more.  She  divined,  however,  what  was  his 
weakness  and  what  his  strength.  He  pretended 
to  be  jealous  of  Liszt,  but  she  saw  through  the 
pretence.  "  If  you  were  capable  of  being  jealous 
of  these  people,"  she  said,  "  I  would  send  them 
all  packing  at  once."  In  reality,  she  is  sure,  it 
is  the  fear  of  public  opinion  that  holds  him  aloof 
from  her:  "  Poor  Alfred!  How  readily  you 
would  forgive  me,  if  only  no  one  knew  about 
it !  "  And  then  she  vows  that  she  will  do  without 

139 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

his  love,  if  only  he  will  accord  her  his  respect. 
She  will  earn  that  respect  by  seeking  the 
society  of  distinguished  men — Delacroix,  Berlioz, 
Meyerbeer.  And  then — 

"When  I  have  lived  this  quiet  and  honourable 
life  long  enough  to  prove  that  I  can  lead  it,  I 
will  come,  my  love,  and  ask  you  to  let  me  take 
your  hand.  I  will  not  torment  you  with  jealousies 
and  useless  persecutions.  I  know  well  enough 
that  when  love  is  finished,  it  is  finished.  But  I 
must  have  your  friendship  to  support  the  love  that 
is  in  my  heart,  and  to  prevent  it  from  killing  me. 
If  only  I  had  it  to-day  !  Alas  !  in  what  a  hurry  I 
am  to  have  it !  How  much  good  it  would  do  me ! 
If  I  only  had  a  few  lines  in  your  handwriting 
from  time  to  time !  A  word,  and  permission  to 
send  you  from  time  to  time  a  little  picture  bought 
for  four  sous  on  the  quays,  some  cigarettes  that  I 
had  rolled,  a  bird,  a  toy.  How  it  would  relieve 
me  of  my  pain  and  my  ennui  if  I  could  imagine 
that  you  thought  of  me  a  little  when  you  re- 
ceived such  silly  trifles  from  me !  No,  this  is  not 
calculation,  prudence,  fear  of  what  people  will  say. 
Good  God,  no !  it  is  not  that.  I  tell  my  story  to 
everyone.  People  know  it,  and  discuss  it,  and 
laugh  at  me,  and  it  is  little  that  I  care  about 
that." 

They  saw  each  other  after  that ;  they  even 
dined  together.  Musset  boasted  to  her  that  he 

140 


The  Thought  of  Suicide 

had  now  another  mistress,  and  she  abased  herself, 
and  heard  the  news  humbly.  "  May  she  teach 
him  to  believe!"  she  exclaimed.  "  I  have  only 
taught  him  to  deny."  And  then  she  invokes  the 
"  blue  eyes  "  that  will  never  again  look  into  hers, 
and  the  "  warm  lissome  little  body  "  that  she  will 
never  again  hold  in  her  arms,  and  goes,  as  usual, 
to  the  Scriptures  for  an  illustration :  "  Never 
again  will  you  touch  my  hand,  as  Jesus  touched 
the  hand  of  the  daughter  of  Jairus,  saying, 
1  Damsel,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise.' ' 

The  thought  of  suicide  recurred  to  her ;  she 
says  that  it  was  only  the  thought  of  her  children 
that  saved  her  from  it.  "  Maurice  !  "  she  exclaims, 
"  I  want  you  to  read  this  some  day,  and  see  how 
much  I  loved."  And  then  she  speaks  of  a  day 
on  which  Musset  made  an  appointment  and  did 
not  keep  it.  She  has  sat  waiting  for  him  from 
eleven  in  the  morning  until  midnight,  "  starting 
every  time  I  heard  the  bell  ring."  Though  she 
has  lost  his  heart,  she  is  sure  that  he  still  loves 
her  "with  the  senses."  But  he  wants  her  to  go. 
Very  well.  She  has  always  a  place  of  refuge 
among  friends  at  Nohant. 

She  departed  to  Nohant,  and  spent  a  month 
there.  She  wrote  to  Sainte-Beuve  to  say  that 
she  was  finding  peace.  Alfred  had  sent  her  an 
affectionate  letter  "repenting  of  his  violence," 
and  proving  that  "his  heart  is  good."  But  he 
does  not  love  her,  and  she  does  not  want  to  see 
him — "it  hurts  me  too  much."  It  will  be  very 

141 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

hard  to  refuse  him  an  interview,  if  he  asks  for 
one ;  but  she  thinks  that  she  will  have  the 
strength. 

And  so  forth.  The  mood  lasted  for  a  month. 
But  at  the  end  of  the  month  she  was  once  more 
in  Paris ;  and  the  remainder  of  the  story — of  this 
chapter  of  it,  at  all  events — is  best  told  in  the 
letter  which  she  wrote  to  Alfred  Tattet,  who  had 
done  more  than  anyone  else  to  keep  her  and  her 
lover  apart,  on  January  14,  1835. 

"  SIR, — There  are  some  very  skilful  surgical 
operations  which  reflect  great  credit  on  the 
surgeon,  but  do  not  prevent  the  recurrence  of  the 
disease.  In  accordance  with  that  possibility 
Alfred  has  once  more  become  my  lover.  As  I 
suppose  that  he  will  be  very  pleased  to  meet  you 
in  my  apartment,  I  invite  you  to  dine  with  us  on 
the  first  day  on  which  you  are  disengaged. 
I  hope  our  friendship  will  be  restored  by  my 
readiness  to  forget  the  wrong  you  did  me. 
Adieu,  my  dear  Tattet. — Always  yours, 

"  GEORGE  SAND." 


142 


CHAPTER   XIV 

George  Sand  and  Musset  find  life  together  impossible  —  They 
agree  to  part,  and  George  Sand  retires  to  Nohant — The  fate 
of  their  letters. 

TRUE  love  was  dead ;  true  love  had  been  be- 
trayed to  its  death  at  Venice.  Passion  remained ; 
but  passion  did  not  suffice.  It  might  mask 
memories  and  silence  recriminations  for  the 
moment ;  but  the  memories  recurred,  and  with 
them  recurred  jealousies  and  reproaches.  Violence 
had  been  done  to  love  ;  and  the  lovers  had,  as 
it  were,  the  shadow  of  a  crime  between  them — a 
crime  which  they  could  not  cancel,  but  must 
expiate.  And  expiation  is  a  solitary  act.  Quisque 
suos  patimur  manes.  We  must  each  dree  our  own 
weirds,  not  only  for  ourselves,  but  by  ourselves. 

That  is  the  reason  why  George  Sand's  triumph 
was  brief.  We  do  not  know  exactly  how  many 
days  it  lasted ;  but  we  do  know  that  it  lasted 
less  than  a  week.  Six  days  after  addressing  her 
bulletin  of  victory  to  Tattet  we  find  her  acknow- 
ledging her  defeat  to  Liszt. 

"  I  am  going  away  to  try  to  put  an  end  to  a 
passion  which  is  very  serious  to  me,  and  very 

143 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

terrible.  I  doubt  whether  it  will  be  of  any  use, 
for  every  day  of  my  passion  as  it  passes  makes 
me  more  sceptical  of  my  free  will.  I  rely  upon 
you  to  do  me  this  justice — to  admit  that,  even  in 
the  days  of  my  greatest  suffering,  I  brought  no 
accusations  against  the  author  of  my  distress.  As 
I  have  told  you,  I  alone  am  to  blame,  and  am 
paying  the  penalty  of  a  very  great  fault.  In 
running  away  from  a  forgiveness  that  would  be 
too  humiliating  to  me,  I  prove  my  weakness,  not 
my  strength." 

The  actual  end  was  not  quite  yet ;  the  fight  for 
happiness  was  to  be  continued  for  some  ten  weeks 
longer.  But  the  issue  of  it  was  no  longer  doubt- 
ful, and  was  always  before  their  eyes.  We  may 
spare  ourselves  the  details.  The  expressions 
of  passion,  alternately  exultant  and  despairing, 
become  monotonous  even  when  the  agony  is  that 
of  a  man  and  a  woman  of  genius.  Each  in  turn 
threatens  to  quit  the  other ;  each  in  turn  implores 
the  other  not  to  go.  Resolutions  to  depart  are 
formed,  and  broken,  and  formed  again.  At  last 
it  is  George  Sand  who  takes  the  irrevocable  step, 
running  away,  with  the  connivance  of  Boucoiran, 
for  fear  lest  she  should  find  herself  deserted. 
Three  letters  present  the  picture  of  the  final  crisis. 

On  March  5,  1835,  George  Sand  wrote  to 
Boucoiran  as  follows  ; — 

"  MY  FRIEND, — You  must  help  me  to  get 
away  to-day.  Go  to  the  coach  office  at  midday, 

144 


Flight  to  Nohant 

and  engage  a  place  for  me.     Then  come  and  see 
me,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  to  do. 

"  And  yet,  in  case  I  cannot  tell  you, — for  Alfred 
is  uneasy  in  his  mind,  and  I  shall  have  great 
difficulty  in  deceiving  him, — I  will  explain  the 
matter  to  you  in  a  few  words.  You  must  arrive 
at  my  rooms  at  five  o'clock,  with  the  air  of  a  man 
who  is  very  busy  and  in  a  great  hurry,  and  tell 
me  that  my  mother  has  just  arrived,  is  very  tired 
and  somewhat  ill  and  wants  to  see  me  at  once,  and 
that  I  must  go  to  her  without  delay.  I  shall  put 
on  my  hat  and  tell  you  that  I  shall  return,  and 
you  will  see  me  into  a  carriage.  Come  and  fetch 
my  bag  in  the  course  of  the  day.  It  will  be  easy 
for  you  to  take  it  away  without  being  seen,  and  you 
must  carry  it  to  the  coach  office.  .  .  .  Good-bye. 
Come  at  once,  if  you  can.  But  if  you  find  Alfred 
at  the  house,  do  not  give  him  the  impression  that 
you  have  anything  particular  to  say  to  me.  I  will 
come  out  into  the  kitchen  to  speak  to  you." 

This  arrangement  was  carried  out ;  and  on 
March  9  we  find  Musset,  still  in  the  dark,  writing 
thus  to  Boucoiran  : — 

"SiR, — I  have  just  left  Madame  Sand's  apart- 
ment, and  have  been  told  that  she  is  at  Nohant. 
Will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  inform  me  whether  this 
is  so  ?  As  you  saw  Madame  Sand  this  morning, 
you  must  know  what  were  her  plans,  and  if  it 
was  her  intention  not  to  start  until  to-morrow, 
K  145 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

you  may  perhaps  be  able  to  tell  me  whether  you 
think  that  she  has  any  reasons  for  preferring  not  to 
see  me  before  her  departure.  I  need  not  add  that, 
if  that  were  the  case,  I  should  respect  her  wishes. 

"  ALFRED  DE  MUSSET." 

But  George  Sand,  as  it  happened,  was  already 
at  Nohant,  and  writing  to  Boucoiran  to  report 
her  arrival. 

"  MY  FRIEND,— Here  I  am  at  Chateauroux,  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  in  good  health,  and 
not  in  the  least  fatigued.  I  saw  all  our  friends  of 
La  Chatre  yesterday.  Rollinat  travelled  with  me 
from  Chateauroux,  and  I  dined  with  him  at 
Duteil's.  I  am  going  to  get  to  work  for  Buloz. 
I  am  very  calm.  I  have  done  my  duty.  The 
only  thing  that  troubles  me  is  the  state  of  Alfred's 
health.  Give  him  news  of  me,  and  tell  me,  with- 
out altering  or  extenuating  anything,  whether  he 
displayed  indifference,  indignation,  or  annoyance 
on  hearing  the  tidings  of  my  departure.  I  am 
very  much  concerned  to  know  the  truth,  though 
nothing  can  avail  to  alter  my  determination." 

Boucoiran,  replying  to  this,  appears  not  to  have 
contented  himself  with  a  sober  statement  of  facts, 
but  to  have  added  comments  unfavourable  to 
Musset's  conduct  and  character.  For  this  George 
Sand  reproved  him,  adding — 

"  To  regret  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  despise. 
146 


Rupture 

Besides,  I  am  not  going  to  do  either  the  one  thing 
or  the  other.  I  cannot  regret  the  stormy  and 
unhappy  life  that  I  leave  behind  me,  and  I  cannot 
despise  a  man  with  whose  conduct  in  all  honour- 
able relations  I  am  so  well  acquainted.  I  have 
reasons  enough  for  making  my  escape  from  him 
without  inventing  imaginary  ones.  I  merely 
asked  you  to  inform  me  of  his  health  and  of  the 
effect  which  my  departure  had  had  upon  him. 
You  told  me  that  he  was  well,  and  that  he  did 
not  appear  to  be  upset.  That  is  all  that  I  wished 
to  know,  and  it  is  the  most  satisfactory  news  that 
I  could  receive.  My  only  wish  was  to  part  from 
him  without  causing  him  distress." 

That  was  really  the  end  ;  and  our  only  question 
is  whether  George  Sand,  in  her  heart  of  hearts, 
intended  it  to  be  so.  Her  biographers  have, 
almost  without  exception,  assumed  that  she  did ; 
but  there  nevertheless  is  room  for  doubt.  Almost 
her  last  act  before  leaving  Paris  was  to  give  that 
Journal  Intime  from  which  we  have  made  so 
many  quotations  to  Boucoiran,  with  instructions 
to  hand  it  to  Musset  after  her  departure.  It  is 
conceivable,  of  course,  that  she  merely  desired  his 
opinion  of  it  as  a  literary  composition ;  but  the 
hypothesis  is  not  very  persuasive.  The  more 
credible  inference  is  that  she  wished,  if  not  exactly 
to  open  the  door  to  yet  another  reconciliation,  at 
least  to  leave  it  ajar.  The  upshot  showed  that 
she  had  staked  less  than  her  lover  in  this  love- 

147 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

duel,  and  therefore  she  may  well  have  been 
willing  to  continue  staking  longer.  If  any 
advance  was  intended,  however,  Musset  ignored 
it.  He  had  paid  heavily  for  his  lesson,  but  at 
last  he  had  learnt  it ;  and  his  ultimate  attitude 
may  be  said  to  have  been  summed  up  in  the  titles 
of  two  of  his  comedies :  On  ne  badine  pas  avec 
F  amour,  and  //  faut  quune  porte  soit  ouverte  ou 
fermde. 

There  was  no  quarrel  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the 
word.  The  quarrelling  belonged  to  a  later  date, 
and  then  it  was  not  so  much  George  Sand  and 
Alfred  de  Musset  who  quarrelled  as  their  re- 
spective friends  and  champions.  The  principals 
themselves  did  not  wish,  and  indeed  could  hardly 
afford,  to  quarrel.  They  had  loved  too  well ;  they 
had  behaved  too  badly  ;  they  had  shared  too  many 
secrets.  Having  proved  beyond  the  possibility 
of  argument  that  it  was  out  of  their  power  to 
make  each  other  happy,  they  had  only  one  course 
open  to  them  :  to  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead 
if  it  could,  and  set  their  faces  separately  and 
sternly  towards  the  future,  putting  their  trust  in 
Time,  the  great  physician. 

George  Sand  at  least  was  soon  persuaded  that 
time  had  done  its  healing  work.  In  May  1836 
she  wrote  to  Liszt : — 

"  I  have  not  seen  Musset,  and  I  don't  know 
whether  he  ever  thinks  of  me  except  when  he 
wants  to  earn  a  hundred  crowns  by  writing  poetry 

148 


Confession  cfun  Enfant  du  Sibcle 

for  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes.  For  my  own 
part,  I  have  long  ceased  to  think  of  him,  and  I 
will  even  tell  you  that,  in  that  sense,  I  do  not  think 
of  anyone.  I  am  happier  as  I  am  than  I  have 
ever  been  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life.  Old 
age  is  coming  upon  me.  My  need  for  great 
emotions  is  more  than  satisfied." 

She  was  mistaken — even  about  herself.  Other 
great  emotions  were  in  store  for  her ;  and  when 
she  had  passed  through  them,  she  was  to  re- 
member Musset  yet  again.  And  about  him  she 
was  even  more  mistaken.  He  built  her,  as  he  had 
promised,  "an  altar  with  his  bones," — his  Con- 
fession dun  Enfant  du  Siecle, — in  which  he  told  the 
story  of  their  love,  and  took  all  the  blame  for  its 
tragic  issue  upon  himself.  But  that  did  not  cure 
him.  As  late  as  1841  he  was  still  lamenting  over 
his  memories  in  verse.  He  had  been  to  Fontaine- 
bleau  and  been  reminded  of  the  past,  and  he 
wrote  the  Souvenir  which  ends — 

"Je  me  dis  settlement  :  A  cette  heure,  en  ce  lieu, 
Un  jour  je  fus  aime",  j'aimais,  elle  £tait  belle. 
J'enfouis  ce  tre'sor  dans  mon  ame  immortelle, 
Et  je  1'emporte  a  Dieu  ! " 

Literary  Paris  being  much  smaller  than  literary 
London,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  meet 
from  time  to  time.  They  met  at  the  theatre,  and 
at  a  Saint-Simonian  gathering.  Once,  in  1837, 
they  spent  together  "six  hours  of  brotherly  and 

149 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

sisterly  intimacy."  They  even  corresponded 
occasionally,  and  sent  their  friends  to  each  other 
with  letters  of  introduction.  But  there  was  no 
renewal  of  the  old  relations,  and  no  proposal  on 
either  side  that  they  should  be  renewed.  They 
had  learnt  to  know  each  other  too  well,  and  they 
respected  the  incompatibilities  which  had  proved 
too  strong  for  them. 

The  one  practical  question  which  remained  to 
be  settled  was :  Should  they  return  or  should 
they  keep  each  other's  letters  ?  It  seems  a  simple 
question ;  and  yet — chiefly,  one  must  suppose, 
because  both  the  lovers  felt  it  to  be  a  question 
which  would  eventually  have  a  literary  interest 
— it  dragged  on  for  several  years. 

In  1848  all  the  correspondence  was,  by  mutual 
agreement,  consigned  to  the  care  of  Gustave 
Papet,  who  placed  the  letters  in  sealed  envelopes 
and  locked  them  away.  Seven  or  eight  years 
later  it  was  proposed  that  they  should  be  restored 
to  their  respective  writers.  But  the  envelopes 
containing  them  were  exactly  alike,  and  Papet 
no  longer  knew  which  envelopes  contained  George 
Sand's  letters  and  which  Musset's.  The  proposal 
that  the  envelopes  should  be  opened  and  their 
contents  sorted  by  confidential  representatives  of 
the  writers  fell  through  because  one  of  the  con- 
fidential representatives  failed  to  keep  the  appoint- 
ment;  and  when  Musset  died,  in  1857,  Papet 
handed  all  the  envelopes  to  George  Sand.  Paul 
de  Musset  then  asked  that  his  brother's  letters 

150 


The  Fate  of  the  Letters 

should  be  sent  to  him.  George  Sand  refused  to 
part  with  them,  but  offered  to  burn  them  in  his 
presence.  An  appointment  was  made  for  the 
purpose,  but  Paul  de  Musset  did  not  come  to 
Nohant  as  he  had  promised,  and  George  Sand 
remained  in  possession  of  the  letters.  Later, 
when  she  had  stirred  the  embers  of  controversy 
by  writing  Elle  et  Lui  and  Paul  de  Musset  had 
replied  by  writing  his  version  of  the  story  in  Lui 
et  Elle,  she  proposed  to  publish  them,  but  was 
dissuaded  by  Sainte-Beuve ;  and  it  was  not  until 
after  her  death  that  extracts  from  them  began  to 
appear  in  various  French  newspapers,  reviews, 
and  magazines. 


CHAPTER  XV 

George  Sand's  influence  on  Alfred  de  Musset — His  moral  decline 
and  fall — George  Sand's  distress — The  secret  of  her  strength 
— She  appeals  to  Sainte-Beuve  to  pray  for  her. 

ALFRED  DE  MUSSET  was  very  hard  hit.  His 
case  was  like  that  of  the  wounded  soldier  who, 
though  his  scars  have  healed,  carries  a  bullet  in 
his  body,  and  is  reminded  of  its  presence  by  sharp 
pangs  as  often  as  the  weather  changes. 

The  literary  influence  of  his  passion  is  not  to  be 
denied.  Critics  as  well  as  biographers  have  to 
distinguish  between  "the  Musset  before  Italy" 
and  "the  Musset  after  George  Sand."  His 
sufferings  narrowed  his  compass,  but  made  his 
note  more  intense.  A  new  poet  arose  from  the 
ashes  of_  the  old :  the  singer  par  excellence  of 
the  love  that  sears  the  heart — the  singer  who 
cries — 

"Dieu  parle,  il  faut  qu'on  lui  reponde. 
Le  seul  bien  qui  me  reste  au  monde 
Est  d'avoir  quelquefois  pleure." 

He  had  been  born  with  a  passion  for  tears  and 
for  the  luxury  of  woe — a  tendency  to  seek  and 
the  ability  to  find  a  voluptuous  delight  in  suffer- 
ing. He  would  assuredly  have  been  "  sad  as  night 

152 


Musset  Transfigured 

only  for  wantonness"  in  the  absence  of  any  more 
compelling  reason.  George  Sand  gave  him  the 
reason  he  lacked,  and  so  made  his  pain  poignant 
and  his  melancholy  sincere.  To  that  extent  we 
may  say  that  she  helped  him,  and  served  litera- 
ture in  doing  so.  It  is  not  necessary  to  believe, 
with  the  enthusiasts,  that  he  continued  to  love  her 
until  his  dying  day,  or,  with  Madame  Kardnine, 
that  he  never  ceased  to  recognise  her  as  the 
noblest  of  all  the  women  whom  he  had  known. 
What  he  continued  to  love  was  the  illusion  of 
which  she  had  robbed  him,  and  the  ideal  which 
she  had  failed  to  realise.  Just  as  a  man's 
power  of  hearing  may  be  worn  out  by  too  much 
noise,  so  Musset's  heart  was  worn  out  by  too 
tempestuous  futilities. 

It  was  not  merely  the  poet  but  the  man  himself 
who  was  transfigured  by  the  passionate  experience. 
To  Sainte-Beuve,  when  he  met  him  at  the 
"  Cdnacle,"  the  Musset  before  Italy  had  seemed 
the  very  personification  of  the  Spring.  The 
Musset  after  George  Sand  was  self-contained, 
unapproachable,  blast,  and  a  cynic.  By  the  time 
he  was  four-and-twenty  his  ideals  had  been 
expelled  by  memories.  He  had  many  mistresses, 
but  he  lost  his  heart  to  none  of  them,  having  no 
longer  any  heart  to  lose.  That  is  what  we  have 
to  remember  when  we  come  to  consider  whether 
George  Sand's  influence  on  him  was  good  or  evil. 
It  is  the  more  important  to  remember  it  because 
so  many  biographers,  from  Miss  Bertha  Thomas 

153 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

to  Madame  Kardnine,  have  insisted  that  George 
Sand  was  not  only  a  great  writer,  but  also  a  good 
woman,  a  prophetess,  a  moral  force. 

Of  George  Sand  as  prophetess  and  preacher  it 
will  be  opportune  to  say  something  presently. 
Perhaps  we  shall  have  to  class  her  with  the 
paradoxical  personages  who  have  influenced  the 
world  for  good  but  have  influenced  individuals  for 
evil.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  certain  that,  from  any  but 
the  purely  literary  point  of  view,  it  would  have 
been  better  for  Alfred  de  Musset  if  he  had  never 
known  her.  Not  all  his  faults,  of  course,  can  be 
laid  at  her  door ;  from  some  of  them,  indeed,  she 
even  seemed,  for  a  time,  to  have  delivered  him. 
Some  of  his  dissolute  habits  were  temporarily 
abandoned  at  her  instance  after  his  attack  of 
delirium  tremens.  So  far,  so  good.  But  she 
also  gave  him  the  spectacle  of  the  best  of  women 
(as  he  imagined)  behaving  like  the  worst,  and  so 
destroyed  his  faith  in  women. 

She  behaved  as  lightly  and  as  loosely  as  any 
grisette,  and  so  did  more  harm  than  it  would  have 
been  possible  for  a  grisette  to  do.  From  women 
of  that  class  a  man  expects  so  little  that  he  cannot 
easily  be  disappointed.  They  are  the  foils  of  the 
women  of  a  better  class  ;  the  contrast  is  noted, 
and  is  found  instructive.  They  do  not  embellish 
infidelity  with  fine  phrases  ;  they  deceive  but  few  : 
they  leave  little  trace  upon  the  lives  through 
which  they  pass.  Love  is  not  slain  by  their  levity, 
and  the  ideal  remains  untouched.  In  the  case  of 

154 


(C 


On  ne  badine  pas  avec  f  amour 


George  Sand  it  was  the  ideal  itself  that  was 
attacked.  She  had  education,  breeding1,  talent — 
and  she  behaved,  at  Venice,  as  we  have  seen.  It 
was  impossible  for  her  lover  to  say,  "  No  matter  ! 
What  else  could  one  expect  from  a  grisette  ? " 
His  deduction  was  bound  to  be  that  "  every 
woman  is  a  grisette  at  heart. " 

He  did  not  want  to  draw  that  inference  ;  but 
he  was  at  last  compelled  to  do  so.  His  new  credo 
is  placed  in  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  characters  in 
On  ne  badine  pas  avec  I' amour. 

"  Farewell,  Camille.  Go  back  to  your  convent ; 
and  when  they  tell  you  these  hideous  stories  which 
have  poisoned  your  mind,  answer  them  in  these 
words :  '  All  men  are  liars,  inconstant,  false, 
babblers,  hypocrites,  haughty,  cowardly,  con- 
temptible and  sensual ;  all  women  are  perfidious, 
affected,  vain,  avid  of  new  sensations,  and 
depraved.  Yet  there  is  one  thing  in  the  world 
which  is  holy  and  sublime — the  union  of  two  of 
these  imperfect  and  terrible  beings.  One  is  often 
deceived  in  love,  often  hurt,  and  often  made  un- 
happy— but  one  loves  ;  and  on  the  brink  of  the 
grave  one  looks  back,  and  says  to  oneself,  / 
suffered  much;  I  was  deceived  sometimes;  but 
I  loved.  It  was  I  who  lived,  and  not  some 
factitioiis  being,  the  creature  of  my  pride  and  my 
tedium?" 

"  All  women  are  perfidious,  affected,  vain,  avid 
155 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

of  new  sensations,  and  depraved," — that  is  the 
significant  generalisation.  A  man's  generalisa- 
tions about  men  tell  us  little;  they  may  be 
merely  petulant,  merely  dyspeptic,  merely  literary. 
A  man's  generalisations  about  women  tell  us  what 
sort  of  women  he  has  known  most  intimately. 
The  man  who  has  loved  a  good  woman  does  not 
blaspheme  against  womanhood,  even  if  he  has 
loved  in  vain.  The  type  of  the  blasphemer  is 
perhaps  Alfred  de  Vigny,  betrayed  by  Marie 
Dorval — the  woman  whom  George  Sand  called 
"  sublime."  Alfred  de  Musset  blasphemed  less 
loudly,  but  for  very  similar  reasons — because  he 
had  lost  not  only  hope  but  faith. 

The  end  was,  as  all  the  world  knows,  that  he 
became  a  habitual  drunkard — the  common  end  of 
the  lonely  man  who  has  found  out  the  vanity  of 
passion,  and  has  learnt  to  believe  in  nothing  else. 
Many  painful  stories  are  told  of  his  decline  and 
fall.  Princesse  Mathilde  invited  him  one  day  to 
her  house,  and  he  arrived,  not  "  on  the  viewless 
wings  of  poesy,"  but  "charioted  by  Bacchus  and 
his  pards."  "  He  showed  a  want  of  tact,"  was  the 
Princess's  comment,  and  she  did  not  ask  him 
again.  He  played  chess  in  the  Cafe*  de  la  R^gence, 
and  played  very  well ;  but  it  was  a  recognised  fact 
that,  after  a  certain  hour  in  the  evening,  he  no 
longer  remembered  the  moves.  To  persuade  him 
to  leave  the  cafe*  at  closing-time  an  ingenious 
device  had  to  be  adopted.  A  glass  of  absinthe 
was  prepared  for  him,  and  held  just  out  of  his 

156 


Musset's  Weaknesses 

reach.  He  rose  to  lay  hold  of  it,  and  it  was  with- 
drawn still  farther.  He  advanced  again,  and  so, 
following  the  green  demon,  staggered  at  last  into 
his  carriage. 

Evidently  we  must  not  hold  George  Sand 
responsible  for  all  that :  such  responsibilities  are 
not  to  be  so  lightly  shifted.  Men  had  proved — 
and  other  men  were  yet  to  prove — that  it  was 
possible  to  love  her,  to  leave  her,  and  yet  to 
remain  sober,  facing  the  world  with  courage  and 
composure.  Even  in  that  age  of  degenerates, 
Alfred  de  Musset  was  exceptionally  weak.  Only 
it  is  precisely  to  weak  men  that  good  women  can 
be  most  helpful,  and  it  is  to  them  too  that  the 
women  who  betray  the  ideal  can  do  most  harm. 
Though  a  woman  be  in  favour  of  all  the 
minor  virtues,  her  good  influence  will  not  sur- 
vive the  hour  of  passion  unless  she  maintains 
certain  ideals  untarnished.  That  is  where  George 
Sand  failed ;  and  that  is  what  the  enthusiasts 
forget. 

Nothing  has  been  more  often  quoted  than  her 
professions  of  "  motherliness  "  towards  her  lovers. 
Sometimes  she  aspired  to  be  their  mother ;  some- 
times their  "  sister  of  mercy."  It  is  impossible  to 
read  the  story  of  the  Venetian  episode  and  not  to 
hold  that,  when  she  spoke  thus,  she  was  covering 
her  infidelities  by  the  profane  use  of  sacred  words, 
and  so  adding  to  her  offence.  The  influence  of 
a  woman  who  talked  as  she  talked,  while  acting 
as  she  acted,  was  not  the  influence  that  could  give 

157 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

a  weak  man  strength  to  resist  temptation.  One 
is  not,  indeed,  justified  in  saying  that  she  drove 
Musset  to  besotted  courses,  for  he  entered  upon 
such  courses  far  too  easily.  One  is  justified  in 
saying  that,  if  she  had  been  a  better  woman,  she 
might  have  saved  him  from  them. 

The  separation  from  Musset,  however,  was  a 
crisis  in  her  life  no  less  than  his.  She  had  loved 
him — after  her  fashion  ;  and  she  had  not  come 
unscathed  out  of  the  ordeal ;  she  had  escaped,  but 
she  had  left  "a  goodly  portion  of  herself"  behind. 
But  she  was  stronger  than  Musset,  and  of  a 
better  balanced  temperament.  Somewhere  be- 
neath her  extravagances  there  was  a  substratum 
of  sanity — a  reserve  force,  as  it  were,  that  she 
could  draw  upon  in  the  hour  of  need.  There  is 
a  Scriptural  saying  which  one  can  invert  and  apply 
to  her :  She  could  not  save  others,  but  she  could 
save  herself. 

Probably  the  chief  secret  of  her  salvation  lay  in 
her  sound  physical  health.  Her  constitution 
could  resist  her  excesses  in  coffee  and  tobacco  ; 
she  did  not  test  it  with  absinthe  and  champagne. 
Moreover,  she  had  been  bred  in  the  country, 
and  was  continually  returning  to  the  country. 
Whereas  Alfred  de  Musset,  at  moments  of 
supreme  emotion,  fled  for  refuge  to  the  cafe*,  she 
fled  for  refuge  to  Nohant.  Instead  of  masking 
her  symptoms  with  stimulants  and  excitements, 
she  repaired  her  powers  and  recovered  her 
energies  in  a  healthy  climate  amid  healthy 

158 


George  Sand  as  "  Grisette " 

surroundings.  She  felt  well  there,  and  that  was 
the  first  step  towards  mental  convalescence. 
Bruised  and  broken,  she  regained  strength  by 
frequent  contact  with  Mother  Earth. 

That  was  what  had  happened  before  ;  that  was 
what  was  to  happen  now.  On  her  arrival  at 
Nohant,  she  had  to  be  treated  for  some  disorder 
of  the  liver ;  and  disorders  of  the  liver,  as  is 
well  known,  darken  everyone's  outlook  upon  life. 
The  malady  yielded  to  treatment,  and  the  outlook 
upon  life  grew  brighter.  A  comparative  calm 
succeeded  the  storm ;  and  George  Sand  could 
sit  down,  with  her  family  and  her  friends  about 
her,  and  try  to  rearrange  her  life. 

So  far,  one  must  repeat,  she  had  lived  frankly 
and  fearlessly,  after  the  style  of  a  grisette.  "  Dans 
un  grenier  qu'on  est  bien  a  vingt  ans,"  is  equally 
recalled  by  her  experiment  with  Sandeau  and  her 
adventure  with  Pagello.  Probably  it  is  only 
because  of  the  accident  that  she  was  able  to  earn 
money  that  one  is  not  also  reminded  of  "  J'ai  su 
plus  tard  qui  payait  ses  toilettes  "  ;  for,  as  we  have 
seen,  she  certainly  had  not  always  scrupled  to 
entertain  simultaneously  an  amant  en  titre  and 
an  amant  de  cczur. 

She  had  resembled  the  grisettes  too  in  her 
refusal  to  know  respectable  people  for  fear  that 
she  should  not  get  on  with  them.  We  have  seen 
her  leaving  P.P.C.  cards  upon  her  bourgeois 
friends  before  plunging  into  the  riotous  life  of  the 
Latin  Quarter.  It  had  been  the  same  when  the 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

acquaintance  of  new  friends,  not  of  Bohemia,  was 
proposed  to  her.  We  have  the  letter  in  which 
she  declined  the  introduction  which  Sainte-Beuve 
pressed  upon  her  to  Jouffroy.1  She  says  in  so 
many  words  that  Jouffroy  is  "too  respectable" 
for  her — that  he  would  not  approve  of  her,  and 
that  they  would  not  understand  each  other.  It 
would  be  "like  introducing  a  cannibal  to  a  man 
who  refused  to  believe  that  anyone  had  ever 
eaten  human  flesh." 

Her  ideal  had  been  like  that  of  the  Libertines 
of  Geneva,  who  memorialised  their  Government 
with  a  demand  that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
"  live  as  they  chose  without  reference  to  the 
preachers."  For  years  she  had  lived  as  she  chose, 
obeying  her  instincts,  and  sanctifying  them  with 
holy  names.  Her  life  and  her  writings  had  run 
upon  closely  parallel  lines.  Writings  and  life 
alike  had  justified  the  cynic's  remark,  already 
quoted,  that  "  in  George  Sand,  when  a  woman 
wants  to  change  her  lover,  God  is  always  there 
to  facilitate  the  transfer."  There  had  been 
ecstasies,  but  no  continuity,  and  no  abiding  satis- 
faction. She  felt  the  need  at  last  of  a  star  by 
which  to  steer — of  a  moral  pivot  on  which  her 
life  might  hinge. 

Sainte-Beuve  was  once  again  called  in  as  her 
confidant,  her  confessor,  the  director  of  her  con- 
science. We  find  her  appealing  to  him  for 

1  An  Ultramontanist  pressman,  also  known  as  an  inventor.     He 
invented  the  central  rail  used  on  mountain  lines. 

160 


t&e 


Love  no  Remedy 

a  religion — or,  in  default  of  a  religion,  for  an 
ideal — or  at  least  for  some  noble  purpose 
worthy  of  "  these  lightnings  on  my  brow,  these 
flames  of  my  genius,  these  passionate  forces  of  my 
soul."  She  is  suffering,  she  tells  him,  the  chastise- 
ment of  her  sins ;  she  has  been  led  astray  by 
"the  sophisms  of  men  and  books."  God  has 
discouraged  her.  Can  her  terrible  malady  be 
cured  ? 

"  That  is  what  I  do  not  know,  and  that  is  what 
I  am  resolved  to  find  out  by  employing  all  the 
strength  that  is  left  to  me  in  repairing  the  harm 
that  I  have  done.  If  I  fail,  I  would  rather  blow 
my  brains  out  than  recommence  the  life  which  I 
have  been  living  during  the  last  two  or  three  years." 

Love,  it  appears, — yet  another  love, — has  been 
suggested  as  the  remedy ;  but  it  will  not  serve. 
The  case  is  far  too  desperate. 

"  The  bare  idea  of  such  a  love  as  you  depict  to 
me  appears  to  me  as  a  thing  not  to  be  realised, 
and  I  shall  use  all  my  energy  in  trying  not  to 
realise  it.  No,  no,  neither  that  sort  of  love  nor 
the  other — neither  the  tender  love  that  lasts,  nor 
the  blind  and  violent  love  of  passion.  Do  you 
think  that  I  am  capable  of  inspiring  the  former, 
or  that  I  care  to  experience  the  latter?  Both 
kinds  of  love  are  beautiful  and  precious,  but  I  am 
too  old  for  either." 

L  161 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

What  then  ?  She  can  only  wait  upon  Provi- 
dence, in  the  hope  that  Providence  will  presently 
send  her  "some  means  of  doing  good,"  and  that 
she  may  learn  "to  renounce  voluntarily  the 
satisfaction  of  personal  desires." 

"  It  is  a  hard  and  a  rough  task.  I  do  not  quite 
see  the  object  of  it,  but  I  suppose  it  has  one  ;  and 
if  it  does  no  good,  at  least  it  can  do  no  harm.  If 
I  succeed,  I  will  tell  you  how  the  treatment  has 
affected  me,  and  whether  I  feel  better.  I  should 
like  my  children  to  have  a  mother  worthy  of  their 
respect.  .  .  .  Ah !  if  only  I  were  sure  that  virtue 
is  what  I  once  dreamed  it  to  be,  how  quickly  I 
would  return  to  it — I  who  am  conscious  of  so 
much  energy  that  I  do  not  know  how  to  use ! 
But  where  am  I  to  turn  for  this  desire,  this  faith, 
this  hope  ?  Pray  for  me,  if  God  will  listen  to 
you  ;  pray  for  all  the  unfortunate." 

It  cannot  be  determined  for  certain  whether 
Sainte-Beuve  prayed  for  George  Sand  or  not. 
What  we  do  know  for  certain  is  that  relief  came 
to  her,  not  from  him  but  from  Michel  de  Bourges. 


162 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Michel  de  Bourges — He  acts  as  George  Sand's  advocate  in  a 
demand  for  judicial  separation  from  her  husband — The  hear- 
ing of  the  suit — Speeches  of  counsel  —  Disagreement  of  the 
Tribunal  —  The  matter  settled  out  of  court  —  The  rights  and 
wrongs  considered. 

LOUIS-CHRYSOSTOM  MICHEL  was  an  advocate  in 
practice  at  Bourges.  Hence  the  style  Michel  de 
Bourges — his  common  appellation  though  not  his 
actual  name.  On  the  first  occasion  on  which 
George  Sand  met  him,  they  sat  talking  in  an  inn 
parlour  till  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  then 
went  out  to  continue  the  conversation  in  the 
moonlit  streets  of  a  provincial  town.  She  wrote 
to  her  half-brother  Hippolyte  that  her  new 
friend  was  "  of  the  solid  stuff  of  which  tribunes  of 
the  people  are  made,"  and  that,  if  there  were  a 
revolution,  he  would  be  heard  of. 

The  Revolution  was  thirteen  years  off;  and 
when  it  came,  Michel  de  Bourges  was  only  to 
play  an  insignificant  part  in  it.  In  1835,  however, 
he  was  a  man  of  tireless  energy  and  fiery  eloquence 
—an  earlier  Gambetta,  who  seemed  destined  to 
pass,  with  the  triumph  of  the  Republic,  from  the 
Bar  to  the  Chamber,  and  from  the  Chamber  to 
the  Cabinet ;  and  George  Sand  hung  upon  his 

163 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

words,  and  suffered  herself,  though  not  quite 
without  resistance,  to  be  indoctrinated.  But  her 
relations  with  him  were  of  a  twofold  character. 
He  was  her  teacher,  and  became  her  lover ;  he 
was  also,  and  at  the  same  time,  her  legal  repre- 
sentative in  the  action  for  a  judicial  separation 
which  she  brought,  in  the  course  of  1835,  against 
her  husband.  The  two  stories,  being  distinct, 
must  be  kept  separate ;  and  the  latter  story  may 
be  taken  first. 

Casimir  Dudevant,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
accepted  an  equivocal  situation.  He  was  satisfied 
to  leave  his  wife  free  to  live  her  own  life  in  her 
own  way,  provided  that  he,  on  his  part,  enjoyed 
an  equal  liberty.  She  was  welcome  to  seek 
happiness  in  the  society  of  poets  on  condition 
that  he  was  allowed  to  seek  it  in  the  arms  of 
chambermaids.  These  mutual  concessions  made, 
they  corresponded  amicably,  and  almost  affection- 
ately. While  George  Sand  was  in  Italy  with 
Musset,  she  received  letters  from  her  husband, 
exhorting  her  not  to  forget  to  visit  the  battle- 
fields on  which  her  father  had  distinguished 
himself;  and  M.  Dudevant  even  carried  com- 
plaisance to  the  point  of  inviting  Pagello  to  visit 
his  house. 

There  were  other  causes  of  discord,  however, 
which  generally  led  to  quarrels  whenever  George 
Sand  went  to  stay  at  Nohant.  They  quarrelled 
about  money ;  for  M.  Dudevant  squandered  his 
wife's  substance  in  riotous  living,  or  frittered  it 

164 


Quarrels  with  M.   Dudevant 

away  in  injudicious  investments.  They  quarrelled 
about  the  children ;  for  a  certain  chambermaid 
with  whom  M.  Dudevant  was  improperly  intimate 
presumed  to  birch  Solange.  They  quarrelled 
finally  because  M.  Dudevant  insisted  upon  being 
master  in  his  own  house,  and  asserted  his  rights 
with  drunken  truculence  in  the  presence  of  the 
servants  and  of  guests.  It  became  increasingly 
clear  that  the  partial  separation  already  arranged 
would  not  suffice  to  keep  the  peace.  For  that 
purpose  there  must  be  a  total  separation  ;  and 
the  property  must  be  strictly  tied  up,  in  order 
that  the  inheritance  of  Maurice  and  Solange 
might  not  be  dissipated. 

Hippolyte,  and  some  other  friends  of  the  family, 
tried  to  arrange  the  separation  amicably.  An 
agreement  was  signed  whereby  M.  Dudevant  was 
to  leave  Nohant,  and  receive  an  allowance  from 
his  wife  of  ^152  a  year  in  addition  to  his  personal 
income  of  ^48  a  year ;  but  M.  Dudevant  re- 
pudiated his  signature,  and  remained  at  Nohant, 
where,  in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  a  vio- 
lent scene  brought  matters  to  a  head.  As 
M.  Dudevant  never  contradicted  the  version  of 
it  that  was  given  in  evidence  in  the  Law  Courts, 
we  may  fairly  credit  the  statements  to  which  the 
witnesses  deposed. 

There  had  been,  it  appears,  a  small  dinner- 
party. When  the  coffee  was  served,  it  was 
discovered  that  the  cream  had  been  forgotten, 
and  M.  Dudevant  told  Maurice  to  go  and  fetch 

165 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

it.  The  boy,  instead  of  obeying,  crossed  the 
room  and  sat  down  by  his  mother,  who  asked 
him  if  he  had  not  heard  what  his  father  had 
said.  Thereupon  M.  Dudevant  lost  his  temper, 
and  violently  reproached  his  wife  for  not  teaching 
her  children  how  to  behave.  George  Sand,  not 
wishing  the  children  to  witness  her  disputes  with 
their  father,  told  Maurice  to  leave  the  room. 
At  this  M.  Dudevant  became  furious,  and, 
shouting,  "Get  out  of  the  room  yourself!" 
endeavoured  to  strike  his  wife.  The  guests  had 
to  intervene  for  her  protection.  He  ran  to  fetch 
a  gun  from  the  adjoining  room,  and  returned, 
threatening  to  kill  her,  with  the  result  that  the 
guests  interposed  again,  and  wrested  the  weapon 
from  his  hands. 

That  was  the  last  straw.  Tempers  were  at 
white  heat  on  both  sides.  George  Sand  would 
listen  to  no  proposals  of  reconciliation,  but 
hastened  to  her  lawyers,  and  commenced  her  suit 
on  October  30,  1835;  while  her  husband  started 
for  Paris,  apparently  intending  to  let  judgment  be 
given  against  him  by  default.  "He  has  cleared 
off,"  George  Sand  wrote  to  her  friend  the 
Comtesse  d'Agoult,  "leaving  me  mistress  of  the 
field.  ...  I  am  receiving  no  one,  but  am  living 
the  life  of  a  nun  while  awaiting  the  issue  of  my 
case,  on  which  my  livelihood  in  my  old  age 
depends." 

She  had  to  wait  a  good  deal  longer  than  she 
expected,  however ;  for  M.  Dudevant  had  taken 

166 


"Pendente  Lite" 

counsel  with  his  mother,  and  his  mother  had 
advised  him  to  enter  an  appearance  and  fight 
the  case.  The  Tribunal  decided  against  him  in 
his  absence  in  January  1836;  but  he  appealed, 
on  technical  grounds,  against  the  ruling  of  the 
Court  in  the  course  of  the  following  April,  and  it 
was  ordered  that  the  case  should  be  heard  again 
at  La  Chatre  on  May  10. 

Not  the  least  of  George  Sand's  trials  was  that, 
pending  the  hearing,  she  had  to  live  a  quiet  and 
circumspect  life,  for  fear  lest  any  transgression  of 
the  conventions  should  be  noted  and  used  against 
her  in  evidence.  At  first  she  remained  at  Nohant, 
where,  she  wrote  to  Madame  d'Agoult,  "four 
thousand  fools  imagine  that  I  am  on  my  knees, 
in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  weeping  for  my  sins,  like 
the  Magdalen.  But,"  she  added,  "their  awaken- 
ing will  be  terrible.  On  the  morrow  of  my  victory 
I  shall  throw  away  my  crutches,  and  gallop  round 
the  town  on  horseback." 

The  rule  was,  however,  that  women  in  George 
Sand's  circumstances  must  live  in  the  house  of 
some  discreet  chaperon,  appointed  by  the  Pre- 
sident of  the  Court ;  and  to  this  rule  George 
Sand  had  to  conform.  The  chaperon  appointed 
was  Madame  Agasta  Duteil,  her  intimate  personal 
friend,  and  the  wife  of  a  local  lawyer.  For  months 
she  found  herself  condemned  to  this  bourgeois 
existence,  with  nothing  to  do  except  to  write  her 
books  and  play  with  her  friend's  children,  com- 
pelled to  decline  the  proposals  of  her  Parisian 

167 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

acquaintances  to  visit  her.     To  M.  GueVoult,1  for 
instance,  she  wrote  as  follows  :— 

"  I  would  willingly  invite  you  to  come  and  see 
me  at  the  Duteils'  if  it  were  not  that  I  am  obliged 
to  live  a  life  devoid  of  all  irregularity  in  the  eyes  of 
the  imbeciles  in  whose  midst  I  dwell.  Happily  that 
is  comparatively  easy  to  me  nowadays.  But  if  you 
were  to  be  seen  coming  to  La  Chatre  from  Paris, 
the  wife  of  one  judge,  and  the  cousin  of  another, 
and  the  daughter  of  the  sister  of  the  servant  of 
a  third  would  raise  a  hue  and  cry,  declaring  that 
you  were  a  lover,  the  origin  and  cause  of  my  con- 
jugal disagreement.  So  here  I  am,  you  see, 
condemned  to  live  in  this  charming  little  country 
town,  at  which  I  have  laughed  so  often,  and  to 
respect  its  manners  and  customs.  You  would  be 
amused  if  you  could  see  how  gracefully  I  dis- 
charge this  obligation,  and  with  what  an  air  of 
prim  propriety  I  walk  through  the  stony  streets 
and  the  squares  in  which  the  loafers  congregate." 

The  time  passed,  however,  and  George  Sand's 
troubles  began  to  approach  their  term,  though 
there  were  to  be  further  adjournments  before  the 
actual  end.  At  the  May  hearing  the  technical 
points  raised  by  M.  Dudevant  were  decided  in 

1  Famous  not  only  as  a  Saint-Simonian  but  also  as  a  political 
economist.  He  was,  for  a  time,  French  Consul  at  Kazatlan 
(Mexico)  and  Jassy,  and  afterwards  editor  of  La  Presse  and  of 
L}  Opinion  nationale. 

1 68 


A  Cause  Cdebre 

his  favour ;  and  the  decision  on  the  merits  of  the 
case  was  postponed  until  the  following  July. 

At  last !  The  whole  neighbourhood  was  alert 
with  curiosity,  and  public  opinion  was,  on  the 
whole,  hostile  to  George  Sand.  She  was  an 
abandoned  creature — a  Republican  and  the  friend 
of  Republicans — an  eccentric  whose  whole  life 
was  a  revolt  if  not  a  revolution — a  monster  who 
delighted  in  "  red  ruin  and  the  breaking  up  of 
homes."  So  argued  the  virtuous,  who  had  never 
known  temptation,  or  had  only  sinned  in  secret — 
whose  husbands  were  not  "  coureurs  de  femmes- 
de-chambre"  or  who  were  willing  to  overlook 
such  marital  peccadilloes ;  and,  with  their  pre- 
judices thick  upon  them,  they  flocked  to  the 
hearing  of  the  cause  ce'lebre. 

It  was  such  a  cause  ce'lebre  as  La  Chatre 
had  never  known  before.  Even  the  official  re- 
porter of  the  Gazette  des  Tribunaux  was  moved 
to  what  nowadays  we  call  "  new  journalism,"  and 
described  the  personal  appearance  of  the  interest- 
ing plaintiff  as  if  he  were  writing  for  a  modern 
halfpenny  evening  paper. 

"  Not  for  a  long  time,"  he  wrote,  "  had  a  civil 
suit  brought  so  great  a  crowd  to  the  gates  of  the 
Palace  of  Justice.  The  author  of  Indiana,  Le*lia> 
and  Jacques  took  her  seat  behind  her  counsel, 
Maitre  Michel  de  Bourges.  Parisians  perhaps 
would  not  have  recognised  her  in  the  costume 
appropriate  to  her  sex,  accustomed  as  they  are  to 

169 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

see  the  lady,  in  the  theatres  and  other  public 
places,  attired  in  masculine  garments,  with  her 
beautiful  blonde  hair  falling  in  waves  and  curls 
over  the  collar  of  an  overcoat  of  blue  velvet.  She 
was  dressed  in  all  simplicity,  in  a  white  gown, 
with  a  white  hood,  a  collarette,  and  a  flowered 
shawl.  Evidently  she  had  only  come  to  the 
Court  in  the  hope  of  finding  some  eloquently 
inspired  arguments  against  ill-assorted  unions." 

Such  is  the  introduction,  not  quite  in  the  severe 
manner  usual  in  the  official  reports  of  judicial  pro- 
ceedings ;  and  then  follow  the  speeches  of  counsel. 

Maltre  Thiot-Varennes  opened  on  behalf  of  the 
husband. 

M.  Dudevant,  he  said,  had  loved  his  wife,  and 
had  believed  his  affection  to  be  returned.  He 
and  his  wife  had  lived  happily  together  until  1825, 
though  the  "adventurous  character"  of  Madame 
Dudevant  had  already  declared  itself  and  indicated 
that  his  felicity  would  not  be  of  long  duration. 
Presently  his  client  made  a  distressing  discovery. 
In  the  course  of  a  visit  to  Bordeaux,  his  wife  had 
conceived  a  passion  for  another,  and  had  yielded 
to  it.  Betrayed  by  the  woman  whom  he  adored, 
he  nevertheless  forgave  her.  Touched  by  his 
generosity  and  indulgence,  she  wrote  him  a  letter 
in  which  she  confessed  everything,  and  covered 
herself  with  reproaches. 

The  reference  was,  of  course,  to  George  Sand's 
friendship  for  Aurelien  de  Seze — a  friendship  of 

170 


M.   Dudevant's  Case 

which  Aurelien  de  Seze  had  tired  precisely  because 
it  showed  no  sign  of  developing  into  any  more 
intimate  relation.  In  the  construction  which  he 
put  upon  it,  the  advocate  was  taking  a  liberty 
with  the  truth.  But  it  had  at  least  been  the  out- 
come and  the  expression  of  a  divergence  of  tastes 
and  interests  between  the  husband  and  the  wife. 
In  insisting  emphatically  upon  that  divergence, 
Maitre  Thiot-Varennes  was  on  firmer  ground. 
He  was  addressing  an  audience,  not  of  artists,  but 
of  average  men  and  women — an  audience  whose 
views  of  the  functions  of  women  were  those  of 
the  philosopher  Pericles  and  the  apostle  Paul. 
Therefore  he  drew  the  contrast  which  he  felt 
would  appeal  most  forcibly  to  their  wooden  heads. 

"  Madame  Dudevant  was  passionately  fond  of 
poetry,  art,  literary  and  philosophical  conversation. 
M.  Dudevant  had  the  simple  tastes  of  the  country 
gentleman,  more  interested  in  looking  after  his 
estate  than  in  poetical  descriptions  of  the  scenery. 
She  was  a  dreamer,  of  melancholy  disposition, 
enamoured  of  solitude ;  he  had  the  habits  and 
the  easy-going  ways  of  a  good  bourgeois." 

The  Tribunal  was  composed  of  "good 
bourgeois " ;  the  hall  was  packed  with  them. 
The  virtues  attributed  to  M.  Dudevant  were 
virtues  which  they  could  understand ;  his  weak- 
nesses were  weaknesses  with  which  they  could 
sympathise.  It  was  much  to  his  credit,  they 
felt,  that  he  had  borne  even  for  a  moment 

171 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

with  the  deplorable  eccentricities  of  a  woman 
who  had  presumed  to  find  the  simple  ways  of 
good  bourgeois  ridiculous.  It  had  been  her  duty 
to  remain  upon  his  intellectual  level — to  try  to 
share  his  rustic  tastes — to  overlook  his  bibulous 
propensities,  and  turn  a  blind  eye  to  his  amorous 

proceedings.     Instead  of  which 

It  seemed  strange,  perhaps,  that  he  objected 
to  be  separated  from  a  wife  who  had  fallen  so  far 
short  of  the  good  bourgeois  ideal.  Certainly  it 
could  not  plausibly  be  argued  that  it  was  for  love 
of  her  that  he  wished  to  keep  her  by  his  side  ; 
and  Maitre  Thiot-Varennes  did  not  venture  to 
invoke  that  motive.  But,  he  reminded  the  Court, 
M.  Dudevant  was  not  only  a  husband  but  a 
father.  Madame  Dudevant  was  not  only  his 
wife  but  the  mother  of  his  children.  He  could 
not  bear  that  she  should  take  them  from  him  ;  he 
could  not  trust  her  with  their  future.  That  was 
the  note  on  which  the  speech  ended  ;  and,  for  his 
peroration,  the  speaker  turned  to  George  Sand  and 
addressed  a  passionate  personal  appeal  to  her  :— 

"  Madame,  your  husband  was  generous  in  1825, 
and  he  is  generous  still.  Now,  as  then,  he  for- 
gets the  wrongs  which  you  have  done  him,  and 
forgives  you.  How  can  M.  Dudevant's  children 
be  taken  away  from  him  and  entrusted  to  the  care 
of  a  woman  who  has  scandalised  the  world  by  her 
licentious  life  and  her  immoral  precepts?  Your 
books,  madam,  are  full  of  the  bitterness  and  the 

172 


<c  Return  to  your  husband" 

regrets  which  devour  your  heart ;  they  proclaim 
your  profound  disgust  with  life.  The  torments 
of  your  soul  pursue  you  in  the  midst  of  your  fame, 
and  poison  your  triumphs.  You  have  sought 
happiness  everywhere,  and  you  have  found  it 
nowhere.  Well !  I  will  show  you  the  road  to  it. 
Return  to  your  husband.  Go  back  to  the  house 
in  which  the  first  years  of  your  married  life  were 
passed  so  pleasantly  and  peaceably.  Resume 
your  position  as  a  wife  and  a  mother ;  walk  once 
again  in  the  path  of  duty  and  virtue ;  submit 
yourself  to  the  laws  of  nature.  In  all  other 
courses  you  will  find  only  error  and  deception  ; 
in  that  course  alone  will  you  find  happiness  and 
peace." 

The  oration  was  the  supreme  expression  of  the 
bourgeois  point  of  view ;  for  the  stupidity  of  the 
bourgeois  mind  principally  consists  in  applying 
platitudes  to  the  exceptional  cases  to  which  they 
are  clearly  inapplicable.  The  task  of  Michel  de 
Bourges  was  to  show  that  the  case  was  not  as 
other  cases,  and  to  establish  the  claims  of  genius 
to  exemption  from  the  bourgeois  rules.  George 
Sand,  for  him,  was  "  the  glory  of  the  age," 
seeking  to  "  reconquer  her  outraged  liberty,  and 
her  independence  that  has  been  trampled  under 
foot."  It  was  a  case  of  ''genius  arresting  its 
lofty  flight  in  the  sanctuary  of  justice  and  bending 
its  majestic  head  before  the  sacred  authority  of 
the  law." 

173 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

His  learned  brother  had  read  an  extract  from 
a  letter  in  which  his  client  was  alleged  to  have 
acknowledged  infidelity  to  her  husband.  He 
would  read  the  whole  of  that  letter,  and  the 
Court  should  judge  whether  it  bore  the  meaning 
that  had  been  put  upon  it.  He  read  it,  and 
it  was  obvious  that  the  sense  of  the  words  had 
been  strained.  It  was  a  composition  of  sublime 
eloquence — not  a  mere  letter,  but  a  piece  of 
literature.  The  law  reporter  himself  was  once 
more  shaken  out  of  the  severity  of  the  official 
manner :  "  This  piece  of  prose,  written  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  with  a  magic  of  style  and  a 
brilliance  of  colour  worthy  of  the  most  beautiful 
pages  that  the  author  of  Jacques  has  written  since, 
produced  an  impression  which  baffles  description." 

Having  thus  conciliated  sympathies,  Michel 
soon  carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  camp. 
"The  pardon  which  you  offer  to  your  wife,"  he 
shouted  to  M.  Dudevant,  "is  an  insult.  It  is  you 
who  have  wronged  her."  He  reminded  him  that 
he  had  been  convicted  of  adultery  under  the 
conjugal  roof — that  there  had  been  alleged 
against  him,  and  remained  uncontradicted, 
"conduct  so  atrocious  that  no  human  lips  can 
describe  it  in  all  its  revolting  ugliness."  That 
conduct,  and  nothing  else,  was  the  cause  of  the 
desertion  of  which  he  complained. 

"  Was  it  not  you  who  compelled  her  to  quit  her 
home  by  filling  her  with  disgust  for  it  ?  Not 

174 


Michel's  Peroration 

only  are  you  responsible  for  the  causes  of  her 
absence ;  you  are  the  instigator  of  it,  and  the 
accomplice.  Did  you  not  leave  your  wife,  young 
and  inexperienced  as  she  was,  to  her  own  devices  ? 
Did  you  not  desert  her?  How  can  you  ask  the 
magistrates  to  give  you  back  the  reins  which  you 
have  yourself  let  fall  ?  To  guide  a  woman  aright, 
a  certain  intelligence  is  necessary.  What  intelli- 
gence do  you  possess,  compared  with  hers,  which 
you  have  so  misunderstood  ?  When  a  woman  is 
on  the  point  of  falling,  a  man  should  be  capable 
of  raising  her  to  her  feet ;  when  she  is  weak,  he 
should  be  able  to  give  her  strength  and  to  set  her 
a  good  example — and  what  sort  of  an  example  is 
it  that  you  are  able  to  offer  ?  And  how  can  you 
claim  conjugal  rights  over  a  woman  whom  you 
have  left  to  her  own  devices  for  eight  years? 
Was  it  a  guilty  woman  who  revealed  all  the 
beauties  of  her  soul  in  the  letter  which  you  have 
yourself  put  in  evidence  ?  The  wrongs  which  she 
did  you  must  have  been  of  a  very  trifling 
character,  if  you  had  to  go  to  that  letter  for  the 
proofs  of  your  grievances.  For,  since  the  date  of 
it,  you  have  received  your  wife  in  your  house,  and 
have  corresponded  with  her,  and  have  lived  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  the  honourable  friend  who, 
in  fact,  treated  her  with  the  respect  which  she 
deserved.  Why,  you  have  even  shaken  hands 
with  him !  What  then  was  your  motive  for 
abandoning  a  wife  who  had  given  you  no  cause 
to  reproach  her  ?  " 

175 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Michel  exaggerated,  of  course — it  is  the  business 
of  counsel  to  exaggerate ;  but  the  conduct  of 
M.  Dudevant  had  given  Michel's  client  the  beau 
role.  The  truth  had  not 'sufficed  for  him.  He 
had  brought  railing  accusations  of  an  atrocious 
character,  supporting  them  with  the  false  testimony 
of  suborned  domestics.  It  was,  as  Michel  said, 
"  with  invectives  in  his  mouth  "  that  he  came  into 
Court  to  claim  his  wife.  He  "  claimed  her  with 
one  hand  while  with  the  other  he  plunged  a  dagger 
in  her  heart."  The  " triumphal  arch"  which  he 
had  prepared  for  her  return  was  "  a  pillory  bearing 
the  indelible  inscription  of  her  dishonour."  That 
indictment  at  any  rate  was  true ;  and  the  answer 
to  the  rhetorical  outburst  was  necessarily  of  the 
nature  of  an  anti-climax.  Maitre  Thiot-  Varennes 
could  only  say  that  Time  was  a  great  physician, 
and  that,  though  M.  Dudevant  could  not  pretend 
that  he  was  passionately  attached  to  his  wife  at 
the  moment,  he  would  restore  his  affection  to  her 
as  soon  as  she  showed  herself  worthy  of  it. 

He  sat  down,  and  the  Advocate-General  rose 
to  sum  up,  coldly,  judiciously,  impartially.  He 
was  inclined  to  think  that,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  wife  had  been  to  blame,  since  her  friendship 
for  Aurdien  de  Seze  had  at  least  amounted  to 
"a  moral  adultery."  On  the  other  hand,  the 
husband  was  also  to  blame,  seeing  that  he  had 
insulted  his  wife  with  "  infamous  and  impious 
imputations."  He  concluded,  therefore,  in  favour 
of  the  separation  demanded :  the  father  to  have 

176 


Settled  out  of  Court 

the  custody  of  the  son,  and  the  daughter  to 
remain  with  her  mother.  That  was  the  view 
of  the  Ministry  of  Justice  ;  but  the  decision  rested 
with  the  Court. 

The  Court  retired  to  deliberate,  and  the  judges 
failed  to  agree.  The  case  was  therefore  ad- 
journed until  the  following  Monday,  the  parties 
being  given  the  opportunity  of  coming  to  an 
amicable  arrangement  in  the  meantime.  They 
did  so,  and  we  find  the  terms  of  the  settlement 
reported  in  a  letter  from  George  Sand  to  her 
sister  Caroline,  now  Madame  Cazamajou. 

"  On  the  eve  of  the  hearing  my  case  was  settled 
by  a  bargain  concluded  between  M.  Dudevant  and 
myself.  I  am  to  hand  him  securities  of  the  value 
of  ;£i6oo,  and  he,  in  return,  assigns  the  Hotel 
de  Narbonne  to  me.  At  the  same  time  he  gives 
up  his  claims  to  both  Maurice  and  Solange,  and 
undertakes  not  to  persecute  me  any  more.  But 
I  invite  you  to  admire  his  paternal  love  and 
his  disinterestedness.  He  demands  not  only 
that  he  shall  be  allowed  to  see  the  children  for 
a  few  days  every  year,  but  also  that  I  shall  pay 
half  their  travelling  expenses  when  they  visit  him. 
Tender  and  generous  father !  When  we  were 
settling  up  accounts,  he  did  not  blush  to  instruct 
his  legal  representative  to  put  in  a  claim  for 
fifteen  pots  of  jam  and  a  small  stove  which  he 
valued  at  a  franc  and  a  half." 

That  is  all — or  at  any  rate  all  with  which  we 
M  177 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

need  concern  ourselves.  Five  years  afterwards 
M.  Dudevant  startled  George  Sand  by  a  further 
claim  for  125  francs  somehow  overlooked  in  the 
taking  of  accounts ;  but  after  that  demand  had 
been  met,  hostilities  ceased,  and  there  was  even 
a  partial,  though  not  a  sincere,  reconciliation. 
Maurice  Sand  occasionally  carried  a  friendly 
message  from  one  of  his  parents  to  the  other ; 
and  M.  Dudevant  even  accepted  an  invitation 
to  be  present  at  Solange's  wedding  in  1847. 
"  Never,"  George  Sand  then  wrote  to  Mile  de 
Rozieres,1  "  was  a  marriage  less  gay,  in  appearance 
at  all  events,  thanks  to  the  presence  of  this  ami- 
able personage,  whose  rancours  and  aversions  are 
still  as  keen  as  ever.  Happily  he  got  up  early 
and  went  away  at  four  o'clock  on  the  morning 
following  the  ceremony." 

And  that  is  really  the  end.  Though  M.  Dude- 
vant lived  until  1871,  and  was,  at  the  time 
of  his  death,  engaged  in  some  litigation  on  money 
matters  with  his  own  children,  he  now  passes 
definitely  out  of  this  story. 

It  is  a  story  in  which,  as  the  Court  held,  the 
rights  and  wrongs  are  somewhat  mixed ;  and 
it  would  be  quite  idle  to  attempt  to  judge  it  by 
modern  moral  standards.  Even  if  M.  Dudevant 
had  been  a  better  man  than  he  was,  it  would 
have  been  absurd  that  he  and  George  Sand 
should  continue  to  live  together  as  husband  and 
wife.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  fool,  a  boor,  a 

1  One  of  Chopin's  favourite  pupils. 

178 


Rights  and  Wrongs 

drunkard,  and  an  avaricious  spendthrift.  For 
such  men  no  moral  claims  in  excess  of  their 
strict  legal  rights  can  be  entertained.  Their 
influence  upon  all  who  come  in  contact  with 
them  is  degrading.  When  accident  has  married 
them  to  women  of  superior  tastes,  talents,  and 
sensibilities,  their  place  in  the  lives  of  such 
women  is  merely  that  of  obstacles  to  be  removed. 
It  is  only  because  they  are  fools — or  because 
their  motives  are  interested — that  they  do  not 
readily  recognise  the  fact. 

That  is  really  the  summing  up  of  the  whole 
matter  in  the  case  of  George  Sand  and 
M.  Dudevant.  One  need  not  trouble  to  ask 
whether  it  would  have  been  right  or  wrong  for 
them  to  continue  to  live  together.  It  would  simply 
have  been  ridiculous.  Delayed  by  M.  Dudevant's 
indecent  complaisance,  and  ultimately  brought 
about  by  his  equally  indecent  brutality,  the  sepa- 
ration was  inevitable  from  the  first.  Whether 
George  Sand  deserved  her  freedom — from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Churches  and  the  Divorce 
Courts — or  not,  it  was  at  any  rate  good  that  she 
should  be  free.  The  society  of  M.  Dudevant 
could  have  been  of  no  use  to  her  morally, 
intellectually,  or  artistically.  From  all  three 
points  of  view  alike,  he  was  an  obstruction — an 
irrelevance.  Whatever  the  Courts  might  say,  she 
was  bound  to  live  her  life  without  regard  to  him. 


179 


CHAPTER   XVII 

Michel  indoctrinates  George  Sand — His  revolutionary  harangue 
on  the  Pont  des  Saints-Peres — She  becomes  a  Republican 
under  his  influence,  and  preaches  his  Gospel  in  her  letters 
to  her  boy  at  school — She  becomes  his  mistress — Relations 
become  strained  and  they  part. 

THE  story  of  Michel's  professional  relations  with 
George  Sand  having  been  told,  the  story  of  his 
personal  relations  with  her  remains  to  be  ex- 
amined. 

In  the  first  instance  it  was  curiosity  that  sent 
her  to  see  him.  The  great  advocate  was  also 
the  Great  Man  of  the  vicinity.  He  laid  down 
the  law,  and  his  neighbours  quoted  his  precepts. 
Moreover,  he  had  found  time  to  read  Ldlia— 
the  book  which  George  Sand  considered  the 
most  faithful  expression  of  her  personality — and 
to  be  piqued  and  fascinated ;  so  that  the  desire 
to  meet  was  mutual.  When  they  met,  they 
pleased  each  other  so  well  that,  as  has  already 
been  mentioned,  they  prolonged  their  conver- 
sation until  the  dawn,  and  then  walked  out 
together  to  take  the  air  in  the  empty  streets  of 
Bourges. 

Even  then,  however,  they  were  far  from  having 
exhausted  all  that  they  had  to  say.     As  soon  as 

1 80 


"  Everard  " 

they  had  parted,  Michel  sat  down  and  wrote 
George  Sand  a  letter.  She  replied  with  equal 
promptitude.  That  was  the  beginning  of  a  con- 
siderable correspondence,  which,  on  her  part  at 
least,  was  largely  literary.  She  began  at  once  to 
make  "  copy  "  out  of  Michel,  and  out  of  the  clash  of 
opinion  that  resulted  from  their  intercourse.  Her 
letters  to  him — some  of  them,  at  all  events — 
were  published  in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes. 
He  is  the  Everard  of  the  Lettres  dun  Voyageur. 
His  intellectual  influence  on  the  writer  can  be 
followed  from  them,  though  the  actual  story  of 
their  intercourse  naturally  needs  to  be  supple- 
mented from  other  sources. 

The  central  fact  of  the  story  is  that,  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life,  George  Sand  found  herself 
consciously  yielding  to  a  Great  Man's  influence. 
Her  lovers,  up  to  that  date,  had  been  mere  boys, 
whose  relations  with  her  had  been  merely  passionate 
or  sensual.  Sandeau  had  been  a  student  sowing 
his  wild  oats ;  Merime'e  a  precocious  cynic  who 
would  not  take  his  mistress  seriously ;  Pagello  a 
nonentity ;  Alfred  de  Musset,  though  a  genius,  a 
degenerate.  There  had  not  been  a  strong  man, 
capable  of  dominating  her,  among  them.  Michel 
was  a  man  who  expected  not  only  to  dominate 
but  to  domineer. 

He  came  into  George  Sand's  life  at  the  true 
psychological  moment.  The  severance  from 
Musset  had  been  a  shock,  throwing  the  whole 
machinery  of  her  emotions  out  of  gear.  She  had 

181 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

staked  her  hopes  upon  passion,  and  passion  had 
failed  her.  She  could  not — and  she  did  not— 
nurse  a  grievance  ;  for  she  had  herself  willed  the 
separation.  She  even  remonstrated  sharply,  as 
we  have  seen,  with  friends,  like  Boucoiran,  who 
considered  that  she  had  a  grievance  and  resented 
it,  adding  that  she  was  glad  to  hear  that  Alfred 
had  heard  the  news  of  her  departure  without  any 
distressing  display  of  grief.  But  her  departure 
had  none  the  less  broken  the  continuity  of  her 
life.  She  lacked  a  moral  pivot,  an  ideal.  She 
was  ready  to  be  indoctrinated,  and  Michel  was  a 
doctrinaire. 

The  attraction  must,  at  first,  have  been  solely 
intellectual.  Michel  was  singularly  lacking  in  the 
superficial  graces  by  which  women  are  most  apt 
to  be  fascinated.  In  the  descriptions  of  his 
personal  appearance  which  we  owe  to  George 
Sand's  pen,  he  figures  as  a  grotesque,  if  not  an 
actually  repellent  personage.  His  head  appeared 
to  be  composed  of  "two  skulls  soldered  together." 
He  was  an  invalid  who  complained  of  the  state  of 
his  liver  and  his  stomach.  He  was  short-sighted 
and  wore  "ugly  spectacles";  he  " looked  sixty," 
though  he  was  in  fact  rather  less  than  forty. 
And  he  dressed  abominably.  This  is  the  graphic 
picture : — 

"A  peasant  by  birth,  he  had  retained  the 
peasant's  preference  for  comfortable  garments  of 
coarse  material.  Both  at  home  and  in  the  streets, 

182 


Michel's  Personal  Appearance 

he  wore  an  enormous  and  shapeless  great-coat 
and  big  wooden  shoes.  Everywhere,  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year,  he  felt  cold,  though,  in  his 
politeness,  he  would  never  consent  to  wear  his 
hat  in  a  lady's  drawing-room.  He  used  only  to 
ask  to  be  allowed  to  tie  a  handkerchief  over  his 
head,  and,  this  permission  granted,  he  would  knot 
three  or  four  coloured  handkerchiefs  together, 
holding  them  in  his  hands,  dropping  them  and 
picking  them  up  again  while  he  gesticulated, 
and  finally  using  them  as  a  skull-cap,  in  which 
he  sometimes  looked  fantastic  and  sometimes 
picturesque." 

The  portrait  hardly  suggests  either  an  Apollo 
or  a  Brurnmel,  though  the  painter  of  it  hastens 
to  add,  with  a  burst  of  enthusiasm,  that  Michel 
brushed  his  teeth  and  wore  clean  linen.  This, 
she  adds,  was  his  "  secret  sybaritism "  to  which 
some  democrats  took  exception ;  but  she  could 
not  share  their  prejudice.  "  No  sentiment,"  she 
writes,  "  is  so  beautiful  that  it  does  not  lose  some 
of  its  value  when  it  issues  from  a  filthy  mouth." 
And  Michel's  sentiments  were  very  beautiful,  and 
he  was  very  anxious  to  indoctrinate  his  new 
disciple. 

His  great  opportunity  came  when  he  was  called 
to  Paris  to  act  as  one  of  the  counsel  for  the 
defence  in  the  great  political  trial  known  as  the 
Proces  ctAvril.  The  prisoners  were  Republicans 
accused  of  a  conspiracy  to  overthrow  the  Govern- 

183 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

ment  of  Louis- Philippe.  Their  conspiracy  was 
rather  potential  than  actual,  invented,  according 
to  the  best  authorities,  by  the  police  for  the 
purpose  of  imprisoning  or  banishing  as  many 
Republicans  as  possible,  and  so  securing  the 
Orleanist  dynasty.  They  were  defiant,  however, 
and  resolved  that  their  defence  should  be  a 
demonstration — a  public  proclamation  of  hostility 
to  the  King  in  his  own  Courts  of  Law.  To 
that  end,  they  summoned  the  leading  Republican 
advocates  from  all  quarters  of  France ;  and 
Michel  of  Bourges  was  one  of  the  elect. 

As  it  happened,  he  did  not  secure  their  acquittal, 
but  was  himself  sentenced  to  a  month's  imprison- 
ment for  contempt  of  court ;  but  that  is  a  side 
issue,  irrelevant  to  the  present  story.  What 
concerns  us  is  that  George  Sand  followed  him 
to  Paris,  and  that  their  friendship  ripened  in  the 
midst  of  the  political  agitation.  She  resumed  her 
masculine  dress  in  order  to  obtain  access  to  the 
Court  and  hear  the  speeches ;  and  every  evening 
she  received  in  her  apartment  a  select  company 
of  friends  —  mostly  Saint-Simonians  —  to  whom 
Michel  preached  the  Republican  Gospel,  or  else 
dined  with  Michel  at  a  restaurant,  and,  after 
dinner,  rowed  with  him  on  the  Seine,  or  walked 
with  him  on  the  boulevards.  It  was,  according 
to  the  Autobiography,  in  the  course  of  one  of 
these  walks  that  Michel  first  fully  expounded  the 
doctrines  of  which,  in  previous  conversations,  he 
had  only  spoken  vaguely. 

184 


"An  awful  Declamation" 

There  was  a  ball  at  the  Tuileries  that  night. 
George  Sand,  and  Planet,  and  Michel  stood  on 
the  Saints- Peres  bridge,  watching  the  reflection 
of  the  Palace  lights  in  the  Seine,  and  listening  to 
the  distant  strains  of  the  music,  wafted  to  them 
by  the  perfumed  air  of  the  Spring.  They  were 
all  enjoying  the  calm  beauty  of  the  scene  when 
suddenly  she  heard  Michel's  uplifted  voice  de- 
nouncing civilisation.  "  Civilisation  indeed !  I 
tell  you  that  before  your  accursed  Society  can 
renew  its  youth,  this  river  must  run  red  with 
blood,  and  this  accursed  Palace  be  reduced  to 
ashes,  and  this  vast  city  which  you  behold  be 
made  a  field  on  which  the  poor  man's  family  may 
guide  their  plough  and  build  their  cottage." 

And  so  forth,  with  violent  gestures.  "It 
was,"  says  George  Sand,  "an  awful  and  magni- 
ficent declamation  against  the  wickedness  of 
Courts,  the  corruption  of  great  cities,  the  ener- 
vating influence  of  art,  luxury,  and  industrialism. 
It  was  a  call  for  the  dagger  and  the  torch,  the 
pronouncement  of  a  curse  upon  the  impure 
Jerusalem,  and  an  apocalyptic  prophecy.  And 
then,  after  these  dark  images,  he  spoke  of  the 
world  of  the  future  as  he  dreamed  that  it  might 
be,  of  the  ideal  rural  life,  of  the  manners  of  the 
Golden  Age,  and  of  the  earthly  Paradise  that  the 
magic  wand  of  some  fairy  might  cause  to  flourish 
on  the  old  world's  smoking  ruins." 

And  so  forth  until  the  clock  struck  two.  The 
interruption  gave  George  Sand  a  chance  to  inter- 

185 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

pose,  and  say  a  good  word  for  Art ;  but  the  orator 
would  not  listen.  "He  was  beside  himself,"  we 
read.  "  He  descended  the  step  of  the  quay  as  he 
declaimed ;  he  broke  his  walking-stick  against 
the  walls  of  the  old  Louvre ;  he  bellowed  such 
seditious  sentiments  that  I  cannot  think  how  it 
was  that  the  police  did  not  come  up  and  arrest 
him.  No  other  man  in  the  world  could  have 
behaved  so  eccentrically  without  appearing  to  be 
mad,  and  without  making  himself  ridiculous." 

And  so  forth,  until  his  companions  were  fright- 
ened and  fled,  and  Michel  discovered  that  he  had 
been  left  declaiming  in  solitude  to  the  night  air. 
Then  he  ran  after  them,  and  overtook  them,  and 
quarrelled  with  them,  and  implored  them  to  listen 
to  him  for  several  hours  longer,  threatening  that 
he  would  never  speak  to  them  again  if  they  refused. 
11  One  would  have  said,"  writes  George  Sand,  "  that 
it  was  a  lover's  quarrel  rather  than  an  argument 
on  the  doctrine  of  Babeuf." 

They  were  not  lovers  yet,  however.  They 
were  only  teacher  and  disciple ;  and  the  stormy 
scene  was  only  an  incident  in  indoctrination. 
Probably  there  were  other  scenes,  hardly  less 
stormy,  before  the  indoctrination  was  completed. 
George  Sand,  though  she  desired  to  be  in- 
doctrinated, had  her  own  point  of  view  which 
she  would  not  abandon  without  a  struggle. 
Michel's  denunciation  of  the  Arts  was  the  great 
stumbling-block  to  her.  She  could  not  see  how 
it  would  profit  humanity  that  Taglioni  should  be 

1 86 


Indoctrination 

required  to  wear  long  skirts,  or  that  the  delicate 
hands  of  Liszt  should  be  employed  to  turn  a 
mangle  ;  nor  would  she  believe  that  Michel  him- 
self was  as  indifferent  to  the  Arts  as  he  professed  to 
be.  Had  he  not,  she  asked,  once  made  a  disturb- 
ance at  the  theatre  to  prevent  Othello  from  killing 
Desdemona?  So  she  resisted,  only  yielding  the 
ground  step  by  step.  The  course  of  the  resist- 
ance may  be  traced  in  the  eloquent  pages  of  the 
Lettres  a  Everard. 

But  Michel  was  a  stern,  domineering  school- 
master who  insisted ;  and  he  treated  George 
Sand  as  a  child,  even  going  so  far,  on  one 
occasion,  as  to  lock  her  up  in  her  room  and 
take  away  the  key,  in  order  that  she  might  be 
compelled,  during  his  absence,  to  reflect  in  soli- 
tude upon  his  admonitions.  She  nearly  revolted 
against  his  rough  treatment,  and  defied  him. 
Just  as  she  had  run  away  from  him  when  he 
perorated  on  the  Pont  des  Saints- Peres,  so  now 
she  threatened  to  leave  him  in  Paris  and  join 
Liszt  and  Madame  d'Agoult  at  Geneva.  One 
of  the  Letters  unfolds  that  programme ;  and 
George  Sand  jestingly  challenges  Michel  to  pro- 
claim the  Republic  during  her  absence,  con- 
fiscate her  property,  drink  her  wine,  smoke  her 
tobacco,  turn  out  his  horses  to  graze  in  her 
garden,  and  make  cartridges  of  the  books  in 
her  library  :  "  All  that  I  ask  for  on  my  return 
is  a  pipe,  a  pen,  and  some  ink.  Granted  these 
things,  I  will  earn  my  living  gaily,  and  spend  the 

187 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

remainder  of  my  life  in  writing  in  praise  of  your 
performance." 

She  did  not  go,  however.  It  is  impossible  to 
be  sure  that  she  even  meant  to  go.  She  remained 
to  be  beaten  in  argument,  to  submit,  and,  in  a 
word,  to  be  indoctrinated.  The  influence  of 
Michel — grotesque  philosopher  though  he  ap- 
peared to  be — was  a  real  thing,  and  was  to 
outlast  alike  her  friendship  for  him  and  the 
sincerity  of  his  convictions.  She  had  reached 
a  turning-point  of  her  life.  He  had  helped  her 
round  the  corner,  and  set  her  on  the  new  road 
in  which  she  was  to  walk  for  many  years  to 
come. 

For  her,  as  for  so  many  others,  the  storm  and 
stress  of  the  Romantic  period  were  over.  She 
had  not,  indeed,  outlived  her  passions — far  from 
that ;  but  their  gratification  was  no  longer  to  be 
her  guiding  star.  She  was  no  longer  to  call  upon 
God  to  sanctify  illicit  love  as  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Divine  will  revealed  to  the  human  heart. 
Illicit  love  was  henceforward  to  be  the  by-play 
of  life  and  not  its  central  drama.  She  had 
accepted  a  new  philosophy  with  a  new  summum 
bonum ;  she  was  a  Republican,  an  altruist,  a 
Humanitarian. 

The  change  of  tone  can  easily  be  traced  in  the 
novels,  for  the  George  Sand  of  Consuelo  and 
Mauprat  is  widely  different  from  the  George 
Sand  of  Ldlia.  It  is  even  more  obviously  visible 
in  the  Correspondence ;  for  George  Sand,  like 

1 88 


Socialism  for  Schoolboys 

most  zealous  disciples,  did  not  wait  to  finish 
learning  before  she  began  to  teach.  The  pre- 
cepts on  which  she  meditated  when  Michel 
locked  her  up  in  her  room  she  handed  on,  as 
soon  as  she  was  released,  to  Maurice  at  the  lycee. 
Her  letters  to  the  child  suddenly  became  so  many 
propagandist  pamphlets. 

She  warned  the  boy  against  "excessive  self- 
love"-— the  curse  of  the  age,  and  the  source  of 
vanity  and  the  greed  for  gold.  She  drew  his 
attention  to  the  war  eternally  raging  between 
"the  sentiments  of  justice  and  those  of  cupidity," 
though  admitting  that  "those  who  defend  the 
rights  of  property  with  guns  and  bayonets  are 
more  often  fools  than  knaves."  She  asked  him 
if  he  thought  it  right  that  the  fruits  of  the  earth 
and  the  means  of  industry  should  be  unequally 
divided — that  some  men  should  be  able  to  eat 
more  than  was  good  for  them,  while  others 
starved.  She  begged  him  to  pay  no  attention 
to  the  erroneous  lessons  which  his  professors 
drew  from  history.  She  promised  to  tell  him  in 
other  letters  by  what  means  the  wrongs  of  the 
downtrodden  might  be  redressed  and  the  whole 
social  system  reorganised ;  and  she  particularly 
urged  him  on  no  account  to  discuss  these  matters 
with  his  father,  but  to  take  advice  from  her 
alone. 

Nor  was  that  all.  Maurice  was  in  the  same 
class  at  the  lyce"e  as  the  little  Due  de  Mont- 
pensier,  who  on  his  birthday  invited  all  his 

189 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

classmates  to  a  party  at  the  Palace.  It  was  a 
good  opportunity  for  George  Sand  to  put  a 
point  upon  her  moral.  Of  course  Maurice  might 
go  —  he  was  too  young  for  the  matter  to  be 
of  any  consequence.  The  favours  shown  him 
by  Montpensier  pledged  him  to  nothing.  Still 
favours  they  were,  and  if  it  so  happened 
that  Maurice  were  asked  his  opinion  on  any 
political  question,  he  must  reply  that  he  was  a 
Republican  by  birth  and  disposition.  Above  all, 
he  must  not  let  the  grandeur  of  royalty  dazzle 
him. 

"  Never  let  yourself  be  persuaded  that  a 
prince  is  naturally  better  or  more  worth  listen- 
ing to  than  any  other  man.  On  the  contrary, 
princes  are  our  natural  enemies ;  and  however 
good  a  man  a  king's  son  may  be,  it  is  his  destiny 
to  become  a  tyrant,  while  it  is  our  destiny  to 
be  degraded,  downtrodden,  or  persecuted  by  him." 

It  was  the  oration  of  the  Pont  des  Saints- Peres 
rewritten  in  simple  language  for  children.  One 
can  imagine  the  affectionate  amazement  of  the 
particular  child  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  But 
Michel  had  spoken ;  and,  in  season  or  out  of 
season,  the  Gospel  according  to  Michel  must  be 
preached. 

In  due  course,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the 
disciple  became  the  teacher's  mistress ;  and  one 
wonders  why.  One  is  tempted  to  say  that  it 

190 


Michel  as  Lover 

was  superfluous ;  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say 
that  it  was  absurd. 

Michel,  on  his  part,  would  seem  to  have  been 
much  more  anxious  to  indoctrinate  than  to 
embrace.  George  Sand's  description  of  him, 
cited  in  some  preceding  paragraphs — the  reference 
to  his  bald  cranium,  his  quaint  skull-cap,  his  stoop- 
ing gait,  his  ill-cut  clothes,  his  clattering  wooden 
shoes — indicates  a  man  far  better  fitted  for  the 
role  of  teacher  than  for  that  of  lover.  Yet  he 
became  a  lover,  and  there  was  even  some  talk  of 
marriage,  though  the  path  to  that  consummation 
was  barred  by  the  fact  that  there  was  already  a 
Madame  Michel  as  well  as  a  M.  Dudevant. 
Presumably  his  dictatorial  arrogance  —  the  dis- 
tinguishing note  of  his  character,  as  George 
Sand  never  tires  of  telling  us  —  required  the 
supreme  concession.  The  Great  Man,  he  may 
have  felt,  ought  not  to  be  refused  privileges 
which  so  many  lesser  men  had  been  accorded. 
So  far  as  he  is  concerned,  that  is  the  most 
plausible  explanation  ;  while,  if  we  look  at  the 
matter  from  George  Sand's  point  of  view,  there 
seems  to  be  little  to  be  said  except  that  there  are 
certain  habits  with  which  women  as  well  as  men 
find  it  very  hard  to  break. 

Probably,  again,  the  very  arrogance  which  made 
Michel  a  success  as  a  teacher  made  him  a  failure 
as  a  lover.  One  divines  as  much  from  a  letter 
which  George  Sand  presently  wrote  to  Madame 
d'Agoult,  complaining  of  Great  Men.  She  had 

191 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"had  enough"  of  them,  she  said;  they  were  "a 
burden  on  her  back."  She  bore  the  burden  for 
a  while,  but  then  her  personality  reasserted 
itself. 

The  story  cannot  be  told  in  any  detail  for  lack 
of  documents.  The  volumes  of  the  Correspond- 
ence ignore  the  episode  altogether.  We  have 
only  a  certain  fragment  of  a  diary  —  another 
Journal  Intime  —  written  by  George  Sand,  and 
bearing  the  quaint  title,  "  Entretiens  journaliers 
avec  le  tres  docte  et  tres  habile  docteur  Piffoel, 
professeur  de  Botanique  et  de  Psychologic,"  and 
a  collection  of  letters,  published  in  the  Revue 
Illustre'e  in  1890-1891,  and  clearly  demon- 
strated, by  internal  evidence,  to  be  some  of 
George  Sand's  letters  to  Michel.  We  have  to 
make  what  we  can  of  these,  and  there  is  not  much 
to  be  made  of  them,  seeing  that  they  all  relate 
to  a  time  when  the  liaison  was  already  near 
its  end. 

They  are  very  different  from  the  letters  written 
towards  the  close  of  the  liaison  with  Musset. 
George  Sand's  letters  to  the  poet  were  written 
with  her  heart's  blood ;  those  to  the  philosopher 
with  ink.  They  are  literary :  when  they  were 
first  printed,  and  their  authorship  was  as  yet 
unsuspected,  they  were  accepted  as  a  clever 
imitation  of  the  passionate  style  of  1830.  But 
the  facts  transpire  in  them,  and  they  allow  the 
cause,  though  not  the  occasion,  of  the  rupture 
to  be  divined. 

192 


Revolt 

"  Alas  !  My  God  !  It  is  a  yoke  of  iron  that  I 
have  endured.  When  it  was  imposed  upon  me  in 
the  name  of  love,  and  with  the  persuasiveness  of 
affection,  I  submitted  blindly  to  a  lover's  hand. 
But  when  my  lover  tired  of  persuading  and  wished 
to  command  —  when  he  claimed  my  submission 
no  longer  in  the  name  of  love  and  friendship 
but  in  virtue  of  some  right  or  power  over  me — 
then  I  recovered  the  strength  which  my  friends 
do  not  know  me  to  possess,  which  is  known 
only  to  myself.  For  I  alone  know  how  deeply 
I  love,  how  bitterly  I  regret,  how  profoundly  I 
suffer. 

"  Everard,  you  are  a  great  master.  I  have 
known  you  sublime  in  your  tenderness,  paternal, 
persuasive,  inspiring  fanatical  devotion.  Why, 
why,  old  veteran,  has  your  heart  grown  hard  ? 
Why  have  you  tried  to  make  slaves  of  your 
children  ?  Why  have  you  preferred  the  name  of 
master  to  the  gentler  name  of  father  ?  And  now, 
see,  you  stand  alone." 

There  is  more  in  the  same  strain,  but  the  single 
extract  may,  for  the  moment,  suffice ;  the  whole 
of  the  emotional  history  of  the  lovers  can  be  in- 
ferred from  it.  Michel  was  a  tyrant  by  nature, 
and,  one  conjectures,  had  become  a  lover  only  in 
order  to  assert  a  tyrant's  right ;  and  one  of  the 
rights  which  tyrants  claim  is  to  neglect  their 
mistresses,  turning  brusquely  from  their  embraces 
to  what  they  regard  as  more  serious  occupations. 
N  193 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

It  may  be  that  Michel  drew  back  from  a 
liaison  which  threatened  to  compromise  his 
professional  position.  Advocates  have  to  be 
more  careful  than  poets ;  and  George  Sand 
was  not  the  woman  to  let  herself  be  loved  in 
secret.  She  preferred  to  afficher  herself,  and 
to  discuss  her  love  affairs  with  Sainte-Beuve, 
and  Boucoiran,  and  other  friends ;  and  one 
can  understand  that  this  did  not  suit  Michel — 
a  married  man  with  a  provincial  bourgeois 
clientele.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  at  any  rate 
neglected  her.  For  weeks  he  neither  came  to 

o 

see  her  nor  wrote ;  his  letters,  when  he  did 
write,  became  "impossible."  George  Sand  not 
only  wrote  to  him  to  protest  and  complain ;  she 
also  wrote  to  her  friends  to  ask  if  they,  by 
chance,  knew  of  any  reason  that  could  account 
for  Michel's  conduct. 

They  would  not  help  her ;  and  Michel,  on  his 
part,  would  not  come  and  ask  to  be  forgiven.  So 
the  hour  of  the  inevitable  rupture  approached ; 
and  it  came — in  what  precise  circumstances  is 
not  known — towards  the  end  of  the  summer  of 

1837- 

Michel  thereafter  held  aloof  from  politics,  and 

amassed  a  fortune  in  the  exercise  of  his  calling. 
There  were  not  wanting  those  who  accused  him 
of  avarice  —  the  favourite  vice  of  men  of  his 
peasant  origin  in  France.  When  the  Revolution 
of  1848  brought  him  back  to  political  life,  the  men 
who  had  once  acclaimed  him  as  their  leader  had 

194 


The  End  of  the  Influence 

almost  forgotten  him ;  and  he  made  himself  no 
second  reputation  comparable  with  the  first.  But 
George  Sand  continued  to  preach  his  Gospel, 
cherishing  the  ideas  with  which  he  had  in- 
doctrinated her,  under  the  influence  of  other 
men,  long  after  he  had  passed  out  of  her  life 
for  ever. 


195 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Maurice  Sand  at  the  Tuileries  —  George  Sand's  relations  with 
Lamennais  —  The  Saint  -  Simonians  —  Their  proposal  that 
George  Sand  should  become  their  high-priestess — Their  gifts 
to  her — Her  reasons  for  rejecting  their  overtures. 

GEORGE  SAND'S  attempts  to  indoctrinate  her 
schoolboy  son  with  the  principles  of  her  lover's 
philosophy  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  crowned 
with  complete  success.  The  letter  in  which  she 
exhorted  the  child  to  remember  that  he  was  a 
Republican,  even  at  the  Tuileries,  and  to  behave 
himself  there  with  the  stern  dignity  of  an  ancient 
Roman,  elicited  the  following  reply  : — 

"  MY  DEAR  MAMA, — Montpensier  invited  me 
to  his  party  in  spite  of  my  political  opinions.  I 
enjoyed  myself  very  much.  Montpensier  made 
us  all  spit  out  of  the  window  on  the  heads  of 
the  National  Guards." 

That,  however,  is  by  the  way  ;  and  it  must  be 
noted  that  Michel's  influence  over  George  Sand, 
great  though  it  was,  was  never  quite  exclusive. 
She  had  many  other  friends  at  the  same  period, 
and  saw  a  good  deal  of  them.  Among  her  inti- 
mates were  ex-Abbe*  Lamennais,  and  Liszt,  who 

196 


The  Influence  of  Lamennais 

was  also  to  be  an  Abbe*  presently,  but  had  just 
then  distinguished  himself  by  running  away  with 
the  Comtesse  d'Agoult,  and  the  leading  members 
of  the  Saint-Simonian  group,  who  tried  hard  to 
persuade  her  to  join  them. 

About  Lamennais  there  is  not  a  great  deal  to 
be  said,  except  that  there  is  probably  no  truth  in 
the  story  that  the  austere  author  of  the  Paroles 
dun  Croyant  was  seen  on  the  terrace  at  Nohant 
smoking  a  hookah  with  his  hostess,  attired  in 
embroidered  slippers  and  a  flowered  Oriental 
dressing  -  gown.  The  austerity  of  Lamennais 
was  real  enough ;  and  the  amorous  religiosity 
of  the  Romantic  School  played  no  part  in  his 
spiritual  growth.  For  him,  George  Sand  was 
only  a  repentant  Magdalen  whose  fluent  pen,  if 
properly  directed,  might  be  a  power  for  good  ; 
and  she  was  so  far  in  earnest  that  she  declined 
an  invitation  to  contribute,  at  good  prices,  to 
the  Journal  des  Ddbdts,  in  order  to  have  time 
to  contribute  gratuitously  to  Lamennais's  propa- 
gandist organ,  Le  Monde. 

The  trouble  was  that,  though  they  were  both 
progressives,  they  did  not  progress  at  the  same 
pace.  "  He  pushed  me  along  in  front,"  says 
George  Sand  in  her  Autobiography,  "and  then 
complained  that  I  walked  too  fast.  I,  on  my 
part,  often  thought  that  he  walked  too  slowly 
for  my  taste."  She  protested  that  Lamennais 
did  not  understand  "how  extensive  was  the 
mandate  that  God  had  given  him " ;  she  also 

197 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

protested  that  he  did  not  understand  life  as  well 
as  she  understood  it.  "  You  have  lived  among 
angels,"  she  wrote  to  him.  "  I  have  lived  with 
men  and  women.  I  know  all  about  suffering, 
and  I  know  all  about  sin."  And  then  there 
arose  difficulties  between  them  on  the  subject 
of  women's  rights.  George  Sand  thought  that 
those  rights  should  be  extended  ;  Lamennais  that 
they  should  be  limited.  He  was  steadily  getting 
rid  of  his  religious  beliefs  ;  but  he  still  clung  to 
the  Pauline  precept  that  women  should  not  be 
suffered  to  preach.  So  he  and  George  Sand, 
after  a  brief  alliance,  drifted  apart  —  separated 
not  by  any  jealous  contemporary  influence,  but 
by  the  shadow  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

The  Saint-Simonian  doctrine  had  many  points 
of  similarity  with  that  of  Lamennais,  but  on  this 
question  of  the  position  of  women  it  differed  from 
it  widely.  Those  doctrines,  however,  were  not 
always  the  same,  but  underwent  remarkable  de- 
velopments which  Saint  -  Simon  himself  never 
contemplated ;  so  that  a  preliminary  word  on 
the  origin  and  history  of  Saint-Simonism  seems 
necessary. 

When  Saint-Simon  died  in  1825,  his  disciples 
who  followed  him  to  the  grave  founded  a  news- 
paper for  the  purpose  of  continuing  his  teachings. 
The  staff  of  the  newspaper  became  the  nucleus  of 
a  group  of  thinkers  concerned,  like  Michel  de 
Bourges,  with  the  regeneration  of  a  corrupt  society. 
In  a  work  which  makes  no  pretence  to  be  an 


The  Saint-Simonians 

economic  treatise,  they  may  be  described,  with 
rough  appproximation  to  accuracy,  as  Socialists. 

If  they  were  Socialists,  however,  they  were 
also  something  more  than  Socialists.  Their 
inspiration  was,  or  speedily  became,  romantic 
as  well  as  economic,  and  religious  as  well  as 
romantic.  They  were  children — if  only  illegiti- 
mate children  —  of  the  Romantic  Movement ; 
and  the  notes  of  that  movement,  as  has  already 
been  shown  in  the  course  of  this  work,  were  a 
revolt  against  the  conventions  of  conduct  as 
well  as  of  literature,  and  a  transference  of 
the  sentiments  of  religious  exaltation  to  the 
sphere  of  illicit  love.  These  tendencies  soon 
began  to  declare  themselves  among  the  Saint- 
Simonians.  They  felt  that  society  was  not  to 
be  regenerated  by  pamphlets  and  newspaper 
articles  alone :  that  the  world  needed  not  only 
a  doctrine  but  a  religion — and  not  only  a  re- 
ligion but  a  Church.  They  set  themselves, 
much  as  Comte  did  at  a  later  date,  to  supply 
that  need,  and  found  that  Church,  with  head- 
quarters in  Paris,  and  branches  in  the  principal 
provincial  towns. 

Brains,  enthusiasm,  and  money  are  the  chief 
requisites  for  such  an  undertaking ;  and  these 
things  they  possessed,  in  sufficiency  if  not  in 
superabundance.  There  were  among  them 
stockbrokers,  wine  merchants,  professors,  and 
officers  in  the  "  scientific  branches "  of  the 
army.  We  have  a  testimony  to  their  earnest- 

199 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

ness  in  the  statement  of  a  brother  of  the  great 
churchman  Lacordaire  that  the  zeal  of  their 
missionaries  reminded  him  of  Saint  Bernard 
preaching  the  Crusade.  We  have  a  still  more 
eloquent  testimony  to  it  in  the  subscription  list. 
A  large  landed  proprietor  from  Angers  gave 
the  Church  the  whole  of  his  estates.  The  director 
of  the  Creusot  arsenal  subscribed  nearly  the  whole 
of  his  salary.  The  mother  of  one  of  the  earliest 
converts  came  forward  with  a  donation  of  ^8000  ; 
there  were  two  donations  of  ^6000  and  one  of 
^4000.  Altogether,  a  sum  of  about  ,£35,000  was 
collected. 

Funds  thus  provided,  questions  arose  as  to  the 
teaching  and  ritual  of  the  Church  ;  and  these  were 
elaborated  by  degrees  after  noisy  debates,  and 
amid  clamorous  differences  of  opinion. 

The  presiding  genius  of  the  new  revelation 
was  the  celebrated  Pere  Enfantin,  who  had  been 
educated  at  the  Ecole  Polytechnique,  and  had 
subsequently  amassed  a  modest  competency  in 
Germany  and  Russia  as  a  dealer  in  wines  and 
spirits  ;  and  he  set  to  work  at  once  to  organise 
a  priesthood.  "  L'individu  social,"  Saint-Simon 
had  written,  "c'est  l'homme  et  la  femme."  It 
followed  that  the  sacred  office  could  not  be  filled 
by  a  man  alone,  or  by  a  woman  alone,  but  must 
be  held  by  a  man  and  a  woman  jointly — officially 
styled  "a  couple."  But  not  a  married  couple. 
Enfantin,  though  no  longer  a  Catholic,  was  still 
dominated  by  Catholic  ideas.  The  priest  and 

200 


Pere  Enfantin 

priestess  must  live  chastely,  "  separated  by  a 
cloud  of  incense." 

Enfantin,  however,  was  a  logical  man,  not 
ashamed  of  changing  his  mind ;  and  chastity  had 
only  a  brief  importance  in  the  Saint -Simonian 
system.  The  essence  of  the  system  was  that 
the  superior  should  exercise  influence  over  the 
inferior.  All  means  to  that  end  were  good ; 
the  flesh  shared  the  sanctity  of  the  spirit ;  the 
embrace  was  a  legitimate  means  of  moral  pro- 
pagandism.  It  must  be  permissible,  therefore, 
for  the  priests  and  priestesses  not  only  to  embrace 
each  other,  but  also  to  embrace  the  members  of 
their  flocks.  Moreover,  the  family  was  fatal  to 
collectivism,  and  collectivism  was  more  important 
than  the  family.  Free  love  must  therefore  take 
the  place  of  marriage,  and  children  must  not  be 
allowed  to  know  who  their  fathers  were.  That 
was  the  revised  creed,  and,  whatever  other  people 
might  do,  Enfantin  lived  up  to  it,  refusing,  in  the 
name  of  religion,  to  marry  the  young  woman 
whom  he  had  seduced  under  promise  of  marriage, 
and  writing,  in  a  letter  to  his  mother,  that  if  he 
were  married  he  could  conceive  of  circumstances 
in  which  he  would  feel  it  his  duty  to  yield  his 
wife  to  some  other  member  of  the  brotherhood — 
"that  she  might  hold  him  in  her  caressing  arms 
at  the  moment  when  a  profound  grief  required 
some  such  powerful  diversion." 

The  difficulty  was  to  find  a  woman  who,  when 
these  doctrines  had  been  widely  promulgated, 

20 1 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

was  both  worthy  and  willing  to  take  the  office  of 
high-priestess  of  this  very  remarkable  sect.  At 
the  great  ceremonies  of  the  sect  a  chair  used  to 
be  left  vacant  for  her.  It  was  hoped  and 
expected  that  she  would  enter  uninvited  and 
announce  herself,  and  that  all  the  worshippers 
would  recognise  her  as  the  high-priestess  for 
whom  they  were  waiting.  At  one  of  the  services, 
the  expectation  seemed  about  to  be  fulfilled.  A 
beautiful  young  woman  entered  the  hall,  attired 
in  blue  Greek  draperies,  with  white  roses  in  her 
hair.  She  had  that  day  come  of  age,  she  said, 
and  had  dedicated  herself  to  the  Saint4- Simonian 
Apostolate ;  she  proposed  to  travel  in  Egypt 
with  Pere  Enfantin.  But  even  as  she  spoke, 
there  was  a  noise  without — the  high  falsetto  of 
an  indignant  female  voice  ;  and  the  door  opened, 
and  an  indignant  female  form  appeared,  and  it 
was:  "  My  daughter!  What  is  my  daughter 
doing  here  ?  My  daughter  must  come  home ' 
with  me  at  once."  The  postulant  was  led  away 
in  hysterics,  and  the  office  remained  vacant. 

But  why  should  not  George  Sand  fill  it  ?  That 
was  the  question  that  the  Saint-Simonians  began 
to  ask  themselves. 

She  seemed,  for  clear  reasons,  more  fit  to  be 
a  priestess  of  that  order  than  of  any  other.  They 
regarded  her  as  the  typical  New  Woman — the 
pioneer  who  had  shown  by  the  example  of  her 
life  the  path  to  the  emancipation  of  her  sex ; 
and  they  knew  that  she  had  "substituted  for 

202 


The  Saint-Simonian  Garb 

marriage"  what  the  articles  of  their  faith  styled 
"  successive  or  rather  progressive  unions."  More- 
over, she  had  shown  her  intelligent  interest  in 
their  proceedings.  Accompanied  by  Alfred  de 
Musset,  she  had  visited  the  monastery  which 
they  set  up  at  Menilmontant,  and  had  admired 
them — or  so  they  may  have  supposed — in  their 
monastic  garb,  which  consisted  of  sky-blue  coats, 
white  trousers,  and  white  waistcoats,  with  the 
wearers'  names  embroidered  on  them  in  red 
letters ;  and  she  had  even  written  to  them  in 
encouraging  terms. 

"  Faithful  to  the  old  affections  of  my  childhood," 
she  declared,  "and  to  old  social  hatreds,  I  cannot 
separate  the  idea  of  Republic  from  that  of 
Regeneration.  For  the  salvation  of  the  world 
it  seems  to  me  to  be  necessary  that  we  should 
destroy  and  that  you  should  reconstruct.  While 
the  energetic  arms  of  the  Republicans  make  the 
town,  the  sacred  sermons  of  the  Saint-Simonians 
will  make  the  city.  We  are  the  soldiers ;  you 
are  the  priests." 

And  she  added,  with  a  fine  lyrical  out- 
pouring : — 

"In  my  poet's  head  I  dream  of  Homeric 
combats  which  I  watch,  with  a  throbbing  heart, 
from  the  mountain  top,  or  in  the  midst  of  which 
I  plunge,  drunk  with  enthusiasm  and  a  holy 
vengeance.  I  dream  also  of  a  new  day  after  the 

203 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

storm  is  over, — of  a  splendid  sunrise,  of  altars 
decked  with  flowers,  of  legislators  crowned  with 
olives,  of  the  rehabilitation  of  human  dignity : 
man  freed  from  the  tyranny  of  man,  and  woman 
from  the  tyranny  of  woman,  and  a  tutelage  of 
love  exercised  by  the  man  over  the  woman, 
and  the  priest  over  the  man.  .  .  .  Let  me, 
therefore,  groan  and  pray  over  this  Jerusalem 
which  has  lost  its  gods  and  has  not  yet  saluted 
its  Messiah.  My  vocation  is  to  hate  evil,  to 
love  good,  and  to  fall  on  my  knees  before 
beauty." 

Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  the  high- 
priesthood  should  be  offered  to  the  hymnodist 
who  had  shown  that  she  possessed  all  the 
hierophantic  qualities  ;  and  overtures  were  made. 
The  Saint-Simonians  came  to  George  Sand,  with 
gifts  in  their  hands,  on  New  Year's  Day.  Her 
small  apartment  was  encumbered  with  their 
offerings,  which  numbered  sixty-three  in  all. 
Garlands  and  bouquets  descended  upon  her  in 
showers.  She  was  presented  with  several 
pictures,  a  writing-desk,  a  yard-measure,  a  cup 
and  saucer,  a  thermometer,  and  a  pack  of  playing- 
cards.  Her  dressing-table  was  loaded  with 
perfumery  ;  jewellery  was  represented  by  rings, 
brooches,  earrings,  and  bracelets ;  the  articles 
of  wearing  apparel  offered  included  hats  and 
boots,  aprons  and  slippers,  and  even  the  most 
intimate  of  under-garments. 

204 


Saint-Simonian  Overtures 

The  temptation  must  have  been  strong ;  but 
we  are  left  to  conjecture  the  reasons  why  she 
did  not  yield  to  it.  Probably  there  were  more 
reasons  than  one,  and  the  psychological  moment 
had  been  allowed  to  pass.  The  litigation  with 
M.  Dudevant  may  have  been  one  obstacle ;  for 
it  would  hardly  have  improved  the  prospects  of 
the  plaintiff  in  a  demand  for  a  judicial  separa- 
tion to  come  into  Court  in  the  character  of 
high-priestess  of  the  Saint-Simonian  Order.  The 
objections  of  Michel  may  well  have  been 
another ;  for  he  was  probably  a  jealous,  though 
not  an  ardent  lover.  The  desire  expressed  in 
one  of  the  letters,  that  Maurice  and  Solange 
might  have  "a  respectable  mother"  may  also 
have  counted  for  something ;  and  so  too  may 
the  counsels  of  the  austere  ex-Abbe*  Lamennais, 
and  the  fear  of  the  laughter  of  the  frivolous 
Madame  d'Agoult. 

The  fact  remains,  at  any  rate,  that,  as  the  Saint- 
Simonians  approached  George  Sand,  her  attitude 
towards  them  became  more  critical.  Coming 
under  other  influences,  she  found  fault  with  their 
methods.  She  was  interested  to  learn  that  two 
hundred  copies  of  her  portrait  had  been  distributed 
among  the  "  proletariat  "  members  of  the  brother- 
hood, and  she  asked  that  twenty  copies  of  that 
portrait  might  be  sent  to  her  for  her  own  use. 
But  she  was  disappointed  to  hear  that  the  Saint- 
Simonians  were  sending  representatives  to  the 
East  to  look  for  a  new  revelation.  The  essence 

205 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

of  Saint  -Simonism,  as  she  understood  it,  was 
the  abolition  of  private  property.  The  rest 
was  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit:  "Jesuitical 
metaphysics,  and  a  pretended  system  of  morality 
in  which  no  one  really  believes." 

That  was  the  answer,  delivered  to  Adolphe 
Gu^roult ;  and  it  was  final.  George  Sand  and 
the  Saint -Simonians  went  their  separate  ways  ; 
and  Liszt  and  Madame  d'Agoult  came  to  pay  a 
visit  to  Nohant. 


206 


CHAPTER  XIX 

George  Sand  and  Liszt — Liszt's  elopement  with  Madame  d'Agoult 
—  Friendship  of  George  Sand  for  Madame  d'Agoult  —  She 
visits  Madame  d'Agoult  and  Liszt  at  Geneva — They  visit  her 
at  Nohant — Relations  begin  to  be  strained — Practical  jokes  at 
Nohant— Eugene  Pelletan's  experiences  as  tutor  to  George 
Sand's  children. 

LISZT'S  relations  with  George  Sand  were  the 
subject  of  malicious  gossip.  Heine  first  declared 
that  he  was  her  lover,  and  afterwards  with- 
drew the  charge  in  strangely  offensive  language, 
saying  that  she  had  "  never  felt  the  least 
attraction  towards  the  swaggering  little  insect." 
Apparently,  however,  the  charge  and  the  re- 
tractation were  equally  untrue.  There  was  a 
moment,  indeed,  when  Alfred  de  Musset  was 
jealous  of  Liszt ;  but  Musset  was  just  then 
capable  of  being  jealous  of  anybody,  on  the 
strength  of  any  idle  rumour  that  he  heard. 
All  our  evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  terms 
on  which  they  lived  were  only  those  of  Bohemian 
camaraderie. 

The  great  pianist  was  at  that  time  the  spoiled 
darling  of  Parisian  salons,  living  not  only  "  in  the 
movement,"  but  in  all  the  movements,  Romantic, 
Saint-Simonian,  and  fashionable.  Musical  critics 

207 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  ran  "  him  against  Thalberg ;  and  before  his  star 
the  star  of  Thalberg  paled.  Women  pursued  him, 
as  women  always  do  pursue  the  fashionable 
pianist  of  the  hour,  holding,  as  women  generally 
do  hold  in  such  a  case,  that  love  may  level  ranks, 
on  the  one  condition  that  it  is  illicit.  Aristocratic 
ladies  refused  him  the  hands  of  their  daughters, 
but  offered  him  their  own  hearts  freely  ;  and  one 
aristocratic  lady  —  Marie,  Comtesse  d'Agoult, 
whom  we  have  already  met  as  one  of  George 
Sand's  correspondents — did  not  even  wait  to  be 
asked  before  leaving  her  husband  for  his  sake. 

Madame  d'Agoult,  ne'e  de  Flavigny,  was  thirty, 
and  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  of  her  day— 
blue-eyed  and  golden-haired.  Her  marriage  had 
been  de  convenance ;  her  husband  —  a  typical 
grand  seigneur  of  the  ancien  regime  —  was 
twenty  years  older  than  herself ;  she  was  bored ; 
she  was  clever ;  she  was  romantic.  Above  all, 
perhaps,  romance  attracted  her  when  there  was 
re1  dame  attaching  to  it.  Her  chief  ambition 
would  seem  to  have  been  that  the  eyes  of  the 
world  should  be  fixed  upon  her  as  the  Beatrice  of 
an  artist  of  genius.  For  such  notoriety  she  would 
account  no  sacrifice  too  great ;  and  Liszt  was 
the  man  whom  destiny  seemed  to  have  marked 
out  to  be  her  Dante.  She  had  had  many  flirta- 
tions ;  but  that  was  nothing.  What  she  sought 
was  at  once  a  grande  passion  and  a  coup 
dtclat. 

Liszt,  being  partly  under   religious  influences, 
208 


Liszt  and  Madame  d'Agoult 

hesitated.  He  was  willing  to  love,  but  shrank 
from  the  irreparable  step  of  an  elopement ;  and 
he  pleaded,  almost  as  a  girl  pleads  not  to  be 
compelled  to  marry  a  man  whom  she  does  not 
love.  He  pleaded  personally,  and  also  through 
emissaries.  He  called  upon  the  mother  of  his 
mistress,  Madame  de  Flavigny,  and  laid  the  case 
before  her,  and  also  before  the  family  solicitor. 
He  sent  Abbe*  Duguerray  —  the  same  Abbe 
Duguerray  whom  the  Communists  were  at 
a  later  day  to  shoot — to  make  representations 
on  his  behalf.  Lamennais  also  acted  for  him, 
and  besought  Madame  d'Agoult,  with  tears  in 
his  eyes,  not  to  impose  this  severe  strain  upon 
their  common  friend's  devotion. 

But  all  in  vain.  Madame  d'Agoult  had  made 
up  her  mind,  and  nothing  but  the  coup  de 
theatre  would  satisfy  her.  If  Liszt  would  not 
compromise  her,  she  would  find  a  way  of 
compromising  him.  So  she  told  him  that 
she  was  going  to  Basle  with  her  mother,  and 
begged  him  to  join  them  there.  There  could  be 
no  harm  in  that,  of  course — especially  if  they 
stayed  at  different  hotels  ;  and  Liszt  did  not  see 
his  way  to  refuse.  The  next  thing  that  happened 
was  that  Madame  d'Agoult  left  her  mother,  and 
presented  herself,  with  all  her  luggage,  in  Liszt's 
apartments.  He  could  resist  no  longer,  but 
submitted  to  his  mistress's  more  imperious  will. 

Thoughts  of  divorce  and  remarriage  crossed 
his  mind.  "If  only  we  were  Protestants ! "  he 
o  209 


George   Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

sighed ;  but  Madame  d'Agoult  had  no  views 
of  that  sort.  Noblesse  oblige!  She  was  an 
aristocrat  to  the  finger-tips,  and  he  was  only  a 
wandering  musician.  "The  Comtesse  d'Agoult," 
she  told  him,  "could,  in  no  circumstances,  become 
Madame  Liszt ; " *  and  he,  having  his  own 
notions  of  what  honour  compelled,  did  not  press 
the  matter,  but  accepted  the  situation  into  which 
she  had  forced  him,  and  took  all  the  blame  for  it. 
Paris  denounced  him,  not  so  much  for  immorality 
as  for  presumption.  The  charge  was  that  he  had 
"  abducted  "  a  great  nobleman's  wife,  whereas  the 
truth  was  that  she  had  abducted  him.  "  Very 
well,  I  will  bear  it,"  he  said,  when  the  allegation 
was  reported  to  him ;  and  he  and  Madame 
d'Agoult  settled  at  Geneva. 

A  woman,  however,  needs  a  woman's  sympathy 
when  she  tosses  her  cap  over  the  windmills  and 
challenges  social  outlawry.  It  is  easier,  indeed, 
in  such  a  case,  for  a  woman  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  society  of  men  than  it  would  be  for  a  man  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  society  of  women  ;  but  she 
needs  at  least  one  friend  of  her  own  sex  to  stand 
by  her  and  accord  her  moral  support  in  her 
theatrical  defiance  of  accepted  codes  ;  and  George 
Sand,  in  this  case,  seemed  marked  out  for  the 
role  of  sympathetic  confidante.  She  had  set  the 
example  which  Madame  d'Agoult  had  followed  ; 

1  Just  as  Dorothea  von  Lieven  could  not  think  of  becoming 
Madame  Guizot  in  spite  of  her  passionate  attachment  to  the 
statesman. 

210 


George  Sand  and  Madame  d'Agoult 

the  elopement  with  Liszt  was  very  much  on  the 
lines  of  the  earlier  elopement  with  Musset ;  and 
the  aristocrat  had  already  descended  from  her 
social  heights  to  form  a  romantic  friendship  with 
the  romantic  novelist. 

It  was  the  liaison,  indeed,  which  had  brought 
the  friendship  about.  Liszt  had  taken  George 
Sand  into  his  confidence ;  and  the  confidence  had 
been  received  with  no  censorious  comments,  but 
with  an  outburst  of  romantic  enthusiasm.  Liszt 
was  an  artist ;  artists,  according  to  the  Saint- 
Simonians, — and  George  Sand  was  nearly  a  Saint- 
Simonian, — were  the  true  priests  of  humanity. 
George  Sand,  therefore,  felt  that  she  must  see, 
and  know,  and  love  the  aristocrat  who  was 
prepared  to  make  such  "  noble"  sacrifices  for  an 
artist's  sake.  She  took  her  pen,  and  sat  down  at 
once,  and  wrote  a  letter  to  her  "  beautiful  countess 
with  the  golden  hair." 

"I  do  not  know  you  personally,  but  I  have 
heard  Franz  speak  of  you,  and  I  have  seen  you  ; 
and  I  think  I  can,  on  the  strength  of  that,  tell  you 
that  I  love  you,  and  that  you  are  the  only  beauti- 
ful, estimable,  and  truly  noble  person  whom  I 
have  seen  conspicuous  in  the  patrician  sphere. 
Your  power  must  indeed  be  great  to  have  made 
me  forget  that  you  are  a  countess. 

"  At  present,  however,  you  are  for  me  the  true 
type  of  the  princess  of  fairy  tale  —  an  artist  of 
noble  manners  and  passionate  heart,  in  speech 

211 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

and  style  resembling  the  kings'  daughters  of  poetic 
times.  That  is  how  I  see  you,  and  I  wish  to  love 
you  as  you  are  and  for  what  you  are." 

Madame  d'Agoult  did  not  reply.  No  doubt 
she  felt  that  it  was  her  privilege  as  an  aristocrat 
to  make  the  first  advances.  She  accepted,  how- 
ever, Liszt's  invitation  to  meet  George  Sand  at 
dinner  at  his  mother's  house ;  and  then  she 
accepted  a  further  invitation  to  visit  George  Sand 
herself  in  her  Bohemian  apartment.  We  have  a 
charming  picture  of  that  visit  in  one  of  the 
Lettres  dun  Voyageur  addressed  to  Liszt. 

The  garret  was  hung  with  blue  curtains  ;  a  few 
engravings  after  Raphael  were  on  the  wall ;  there 
were  plenty  of  books,  and  flowers — and  pipes ; 
the  guests  for  whom  there  were  no  seats  could 
stretch  themselves  on  rugs  upon  the  floor.  Liszt 
sat  at  the  piano,  and  George  Sand  sat  on  top  of 
it.  Emmanuel  Arago  had  lifted  her  on  to  that 
graceful  perch,  laughing  at  her  because  she  was  so 
small,  proposing  for  the  future  to  carry  her  about 
with  him  in  a  paper  bag.  Michel  de  Bourges, 
listening  to  the  music,  was  wrapt  in  contemplation 
and  dissolved  in  tears.  "  Young  man,  you  are 
great ! "  he  sobbed,  in  the  intervals  between  the 
pieces.  Liszt's  pupil  Puzzi,  who  afterwards  be- 
came a  Carmelite  monk,  lay  at  the  feet  of  ex- 
Abbe'  Lamennais — "  the  Saint  of  Brittany  "  —who 
discoursed  to  him  of  spiritual  things ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  this  gathering,  "the  Peri  in  the  blue 

212 


A  Romantic  Friendship 

dress   descended,  like  the   fairies  who  appear  to 
the  poor  artists  in  Hoffmann's  joyous  tales." 

The  romantic  friendship  dated  from  that  day. 
"  The  first  time  I  saw  you,"  George  Sand  after- 
wards wrote,  "  I  thought  you  pretty,  but  you 
were  cold.  The  second  time  I  told  you  that  I 
detested  the  aristocracy,  not  knowing  that  you 
belonged  to  it.  Instead  of  boxing  my  ears  as  I 
deserved,  you  talked  to  me  about  your  soul,  as  if 
I  had  known  you  for  ten  years." 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  correspond- 
ence ;  and  there  was  no  fear  that  the  flight  to 
Geneva  would  put  an  end  to  the  relations  thus  in- 
augurated. On  the  contrary,  it  was  understood  that 
George  Sand  would  be  the  guest  of  the  fugitives 
as  soon  as  she  could  get  away.  Apparently, 
as  we  have  seen,  she  thought  of  taking  refuge 
with  them  when  Michel,  that  truculent  propa- 
gandist, locked  her  up  in  her  room  to  meditate 
upon  his  doctrines.  The  repeated  adjournments, 
however,  of  her  suit  against  M.  Dudevant  claimed 
her  presence  in  France,  and  it  was  not  until 
towards  the  end  of  the  summer  of  1836  that  she 
was  able  to  start  for  Switzerland. 

Her  spirits  were  high,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
her  relations  with  Michel  were  already  beginning 
to  be  strained.  Probably  she  felt  a  sense  of 
relief  in  the  temporary  escape  from  his  jurisdic- 
tion. At  all  events,  her  record  of  the  excursion 
reads  like  the  chronicle  of  a  schoolgirl's  holiday. 
She  and  her  friends  and  Puzzi  and  Major  Pictet 

213 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

made  a  trip  to  Chamonix,  and  behaved  with  an 
abandon  which  caused  them  to  be  mistaken  for 
strolling  players.  They  gave  each  other  queer  nick- 
names. Madame  d'Agoult's  party  were  "  the  Fel- 
lows "  ;  George  Sand  and  her  maid — who  thought 
Martigny  was  Martinique,  and  wept  to  find  herself 
so  far  away  from  home — and  Maurice  and  Solange 
were  the  Famille  Piffoels,  a  sobriquet  which  the 
length  of  their  noses  suggested.  Like  many  other 
travellers  of  less  renown,  they  made  jocular  entries 
in  the  visitors'  book.  Liszt  described  himself  as  a 
' 'musician  philosopher,"  born  on  Parnassus,  and 
journeying  from  Doubt  to  Truth.  The  particulars 
which  George  Sand  furnished  were  as  follows  : — 


Nom  des  voyageurs 

Domicile 

D'ou  Us  vtennent 

Ou  Us  vont . 

Lieu  de  naissancc 

Qualith 

Date  de  leurs  titres 

Ddlivrts  par  qui 


Famille  Piffoels. 

La  Nature. 

De  Dieu. 

Au  Ciel. 

Europe. 

Flaneurs. 

Toujours. 

Par  1'opinion  publique. 


In  October  the  friends  parted,  and  were  better 
friends  than  ever.  There  exists  a  document, 
drafted  by  Madame  d'Agoult  in  playful  imitation 
of  a  legal  contract,  whereby  they  professed  to 
conclude  an  ''offensive  and  defensive  alliance." 
The  most  interesting  clause  in  the  document  is 
the  following : — 

"It  is  agreed  between  the  parties  that  public 
214 


A  Salon 

morality  is  a  word  that  rings  hollow,  being  com- 
posed of  ninty-nine  million  private  immoralities 
fused  together  to  make  a  public  morality  on  the 
principle  that  two  blacks  make  a  white.  And  it 
is  further  agreed  between  the  parties  that  they 
will  protest  against  the  said  public  morality  in 
thought,  word,  and  action." 

Such  was  the  bond  of  union  between  the 
travellers  who  told  the  quidnuncs  that  they  came 
from  God  and  were  on  their  way  to  heaven. 
"  Charming  and  angelic  in  its  goodness  "  is  George 
Sand's  description  of  the  letter  containing  the 
text  of  the  treaty  ;  and  presently  measures  were 
taken  to  give  effect  to  it.  The  allies  took  apart- 
ments in  the  same  house — the  Hotel  de  France 
in  the  Rue  neuve-Lafitte — and  jointly  opened  a 
salon  to  defy  the  world. 

The  aristocracy  naturally  did  not  accept — and 
presumably  did  not  receive — invitations.  Women, 
too,  were  almost  as  scarce  as  they  were,  at  a  later 
date,  in  the  salon  of  Lady  Blessington  ;  Madame 
Marliani,  wife  of  the  Spanish  Consul,  being  the 
only  habitude  of  her  sex.  But  Liszt  filled  the 
house  with  artists,  and  George  Sand  introduced 
her  literary  friends.  Lamennais  came,  not  having 
been  informed,  perhaps,  that  his  hostesses  had 
declared  public  morality  to  be  the  Enemy  ;  so  did 
Pierre  Leroux,  whom  we  shall  meet  again  in  a 
more  intimate  connection  with  George  Sand  ;  so 
did  Sainte-Beuve,  of  whom  it  is  recorded  that,  if 

215 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

not  on  that  occasion,  then  on  some  other,  he 
"taught  George  Sand  to  pray."  Other  guests 
were  Heine,  unaccompanied,  one  conjectures,  by 
Mathilde ;  Ballanche,  who  loved  Madame 
Re"camier  ;  Eugene  Sue,  who  had  not  yet  achieved 
fame  with  Les  Mysteres  de  Paris ;  Mickiewics, 
the  Polish  poet ;  Charles  Didier l  of  Geneva,  Victor 
Schoelcher,  Adolphe  Nourrit,2  and  the  inevitable 
Michel.  Truly  a  notable  salon,  well  worthy  to 
have  its  history  written,  though  it  was  only  in 
existence  for  two  months  and  a  half! 

At  the  end  of  that  time  George  Sand  withdrew 
to  Nohant,  either  because  she  was  tiring  of  in- 
terminable conversation,  or  because  influenza 
was  raging  in  Paris.  But  the  friendship  was  still 
unimpaired,  and  it  was  arranged  that  her  friend 
should  follow  her,  and  make  a  long  stay  in  her 
house.  An  attack  of  influenza  detained  Madame 
d'Agoult  for  a  few  days,  but  she  came  as  soon  as 
she  was  convalescent ;  and  the  visit  lasted,  with 
an  interruption  in  the  Spring,  from  February  until 
July.  Three  weeks  after  her  arrival,  we  find  her 
writing  to  her  friend  Louis  de  Ronchaud  :  "  I  am 
very  happy  here.  My  affection  for  George  is 
increasing.  The  country  suits  her  better  than 
Paris,  and  it  suits  me  better  too."  And  a  letter 
from  Liszt  to  the  same  correspondent  tells  us 

1  Poet,    novelist,    and    traveller,    best    known    for   his    Rome 
souterraine. 

2  The  opera  singer.     He  committed  suicide  by  throwing  himself 
from  a  window  at  Naples. 

2l6 


The  Beginning  of  Estrangement 

how  the  time  was  passed,  in  riding,  and  reading, 
and  walking,  and  music,  and  philosophical 
discussion. 

It  was  during  this  period,  however,  that  the 
romantic  friendship  began  to  cool ;  and  the 
reasons  why  it  did  so — and  was  bound  to  do  so 
— are  not  difficult  to  conjecture.  The  friends 
necessarily  saw  too  much  of  each  other.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  they  had  made  common  cause 
against  "public  morality,"  their  tastes  and 
dispositions  differed,  and  their  characters  clashed  ; 
while,  in  so  far  as  they  were  two  of  a  trade,  there 
was  an  obvious  opening  for  jealousy.  Madame 
d'Agoult  had  literary  aspirations — literature  has 
something  more  than  a  nodding  acquaintance 
with  her  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  Daniel  Stern  " 
— and  the  laurels  of  George  Sand  did  not  suffer 
her  to  sleep.  She  was  an  amateur,  envious  of 
the  greater  renown  of  the  professional,  and 
probably  unable  to  see  that  the  professional  was 
any  cleverer  than  herself. 

On  the  other  hand,  Madame  d'Agoult  was 
grande  dame,  and  though  George  Sand  was 
capable  of  affecting  the  style  of  grande  dame 
when  she  remembered  her  grandmother's  lessons 
in  deportment,  she  generally  forgot  those  lessons, 
and  behaved  quite  otherwise.  She  was  Bohemian, 
don  gar$on,  and  she  conducted  her  house  after 
the  approved  style  of  Liberty  Hall — perhaps  one 
may  even  say,  after  the  fashion  of  the  country- 
houses  of  that  smart  set  denounced  by  Father 

217 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Vaughan  and  other  popular  preachers  of  our  own 
time.  Liszt's  account  of  the  life  there  is  only  a 
partial  picture  which  her  own  letters  to  various 
friends  supplement  with  surprising  particulars. 

Practical  jokes,  we  gather,  were  the  order  of 
the  day.  Apple-pie  beds  were  made ;  April  fool 
tricks  were  played — not  all  of  them  in  the  best  of 
taste.  A  distinguished  stranger,  for  example, 
called,  asking  to  be  allowed  to  introduce  himself 
and  pay  his  homage  ;  and  it  was  arranged  that  he 
should  be  received  by  the  maid,  who  pretended  to 
be  the  mistress,  while  George  Sand  hid  herself 
behind  a  curtain,  and  watched  her  admirer 
bowing  low  before  the  servant  and  complimenting 
her  upon  her  literary  genius.  Eugene  Pelletan — 
the  father  of  M.  Camille  Pelletan,  recently  French 
Naval  Minister — who  was  then  living  at  Nohant 
as  Maurice  Sand's  tutor,  was  practically  driven 
out  of  the  house  by  the  annoyances  which  he 
suffered.  One  of  the  party  pretended  to  be 
drunk,  and  wept  upon  his  breast  at  the  dinner- 
table.  Another  presented  him  with  a  comestible 
which  he  tried  to  eat,  and  which  he  then 
discovered  to  be  something  so  nauseating  that 
George  Sand  would  not  even  name  it  in  Latin 
when  she  told  the  story.  She  complains,  again 
and  again,  that  the  tutor  will  not  take  these 
jokes  in  good  part,  but  "  looks  stupid,  becomes 
melancholy,  thinks  of  eternity  and  infinity  and 
his  misunderstood  genius,  and  retires  to  bed." 

There  is  no  evidence,  indeed,  that  any  of  these 
218 


Alienation 

jokes  were  played  at  Madame  d'Agoult's  expense. 
If,  for  instance,  the  water  which  was  poured  out 
of  the  window  on  to  Pelletan's  head,  had  fallen 
on  one  of  her  expensive  dresses,  we  may  be 
tolerably  sure  that  she  would  have  packed  and 
departed  without  loss  of  time.  But  the  atmo- 
sphere in  which  such  things  happened  cannot 
have  been  congenial  to  her.  The  whole  tone 
of  the  house  must  have  jarred  upon  her  equally 
as  grande  dame  and  as  a  sentimental  student  of 
the  reflections  and  philosophisings  of  Senancour.1 
She  was  dignified  even  when  she  was  frivolous, 
and  she  discovered  that  her  friend  was  vulgar 
even  when  she  was  a  love-sick  Socialist.  So 
the  seeds  of  estrangement  were  sown. 

There  was  no  open  quarrel.  Correspondence, 
ostensibly  amicable,  still  continued  after  Madame 
d'Agoult  and  Liszt  had  left  Nohant  for  the 
Italian  Lakes.  But  the  correspondents  began 
to  neglect  each  other,  and  to  make  the  neglect  a 
matter  for  mutual  reproaches ;  and  presently  the 
correspondence  began  to  contain  certain  personal 
references  of  which  alienation  was  the  natural 
sequel.  We  find  the  name  of  Mallefille  in 
the  letters,  and,  a  little  later,  we  find  the  name 
of  Chopin ;  but  these  names  belong  to  other 
sections  of  the  story,  so  that  the  relation  of  the 
actual  rupture  must  be  postponed. 

1  The  author  of  Obermann. 


219 


CHAPTER   XX 

Death  of  George  Sand's  mother — Solange  kidnapped  by  M.  Dude- 
vant — Pursuit  and  recapture — Letters  to  Girerd  on  the  waning 
of  the  love  of  Michel — George  Sand  consoles  herself  for  the 
loss  of  Michel's  love  by  becoming  the  mistress  of  Felicien 
Mallefille — She  and  Madame  d'Agoult  quarrel  about  Mallefille 
— Mallefille  supplanted  by  Pierre  Leroux. 

THE  multifarious  character  of  George  Sand's 
activities  has  compelled  departure  from  the 
chronological  order  of  relation  ;  and  even  now  it 
is  still  necessary  to  turn  back,  and  recapitulate, 
and  supplement. 

Never,  perhaps,  did  a  woman  of  letters  live 
a  more  crowded  life  than  she  did  in  the  eighteen 
months  or  so  which  terminated  at  the  end  of  the 
Summer  of  1837.  One  might  have  thought  that 
her  litigation  and  her  love  affairs  would  have 
sufficed  to  fill  her  time ;  but  she  found  leisure  for 
several  other  interests  and  occupations.  She 
toyed,  as  has  been  told,  with  Saint-Simonism  ; 
she  adopted  a  new  social  creed  under  the  influence 
of  Michel,  and  modified  it  under  the  influence  of 
Lamennais ;  she  laughed  with  Liszt  and  Madame 
d'Agoult,  and  joined  in  the  practical  jokes  played 
upon  Eugene  Pelletan.  Nor  was  that  all.  She 
also  studied  phrenology,  and  nursed  her  children 

220 


Death  of  Madame  Maurice  Dupin 

through  an  attack  of  smallpox,  and  poured  out 
romances  for  Buloz,  who  was  exigent,  having 
paid  her  in  advance.  There  were  times  when 
she  had  to  toil  thirteen  hours  a  day,  and  to 
sit  all  night  at  her  desk,  in  order  to  keep  pace 
with  his  demands. 

One  of  her  interruptions  was  a  summons  to 
her  mother's  deathbed.  The  frivolous  little 
woman  died  as  she  had  lived — still  coquettish  at 
the  age  of  seventy.  "  Please  put  my  hair 
straight,"  were  her  last  recorded  words.  "  I 
suffered  a  good  deal  at  her  hands.  My  worst 
troubles  were  due  to  her,"  wrote  George  Sand 
to  her  friend  Papet ;  and  we  need  not  call  her 
an  unnatural  daughter  for  making  the  confession. 
Madame  Maurice  Dupin  was  a  silly  woman  as 
well  as  a  loose  woman ;  she  had  the  mind  and 
the  manners,  as  well  as  the  morals,  of  a 
daughter  of  the  regiment,  and  must  always  have 
been  a  weight  about  her  daughter's  neck. 
Sympathy  between  them  was  impossible.  The 
further  statement  in  the  letter  to  Papet  that  "she 
came  at  last  to  understand  my  character  and  to  do 
me  full  justice  "  does  not  inspire  conviction.  As 
fairly  might  one  speak  of  a  sparrow  understanding 
and  doing  justice  to  an  eagle.  George  Sand, 
if  we  may  trust  her  own  report,  had  only  loved 
her  mother,  as  a  child,  from  chivalrous  perversity, 
to  annoy  her  grandmother;  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  loss  was  borne  with 
easy  resignation. 

221 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

A  more  serious,  and  almost  simultaneous 
trouble  was  due  to  the  action  of  M.  Dudevant, 
who  kidnapped  and  carried  off  Solange  "  in  spite 
of  the  child's  piercing  shrieks  and  the  resistance 
of  her  governess."  The  news  roused  the  mother 
to  instant  and  indignant  action.  She  "  raised 
the  Devil,"  as  she  puts  it.  She  pursued  the 
fugitives  for  three  days  and  three  nights  in  a 
post-chaise.  She  called  in  the  police  and  set  the 
law  in  motion.  She  overtook  M.  Dudevant, 
attended  by  a  sub-prefect,  an  officer  of  gen- 
darmes, and  an  armed  escort — just  in  time,  for 
M.  Dudevant  was  on  the  point  of  taking  refuge 
in  Spain.  The  house  in  which  he  was  staying 
was  surrounded,  and  he  was  summoned  to 
surrender.  He  had  no  choice  but  to  do  so ; 
and  Solange — a  self-willed,  obstinate  child,  whose 
screams  probably  had  not  been  without  their 
influence — was  handed  over  to  her  mother  "like 
a  princess  on  the  frontier  of  two  States." 

The  date  of  these  events  is  also,  approximately, 
the  date  of  the  final  rupture  with  Michel.  A  few 
letters  from  George  Sand  to  their  common 
friend  Frederic  Girerd  supplement  the  documents 
already  quoted  with  reference  to  this  branch  of 
the  subject,  but  without  really  adding  very  much 
to  our  knowledge  of  it.  Girerd,  it  seems,  had 
warned  her  that  the  liaison  would  turn  out  badly, 
and  she  admits  that  he  was  right. 

"  You  think  that  I  am  happy,  my  friend.     Far 
222 


Michel 

from  that.  In  addition  to  the  painful  illnesses 
in  my  house,  I  have  suffered  at  Michel's  hands 
all  that  you  foresaw,  and  the  predictions  con- 
tained in  your  last  letter  have  also  been  fulfilled. 
Weary  of  my  devotion,  having  fought  my  pride 
with  all  the  power  of  my  love,  and  getting 
nothing  but  hardness  and  ingratitude  for  my 
reward,  I  have  felt  my  soul  broken  and  my  love 
extinguished.  Now  I  am  cured.  Do  not  con- 
gratulate me  too  warmly  on  this  melancholy 
happiness,  and  yet  do  not  pity  me  too  much  ; 
for,  relatively  speaking,  I  have  reason  to  be 
grateful  to  my  destiny.  These  frightful  agonies 
have  yielded  to  their  own  excess.  By  dint  of 
bleeding  the  wound  is  healed,  and  this  time  I 
am  sure  of  myself:  I  love  no  longer.  I  feel 
that  the  veil  has  fallen,  and  that  I  have  recovered 
my  strength.  I  need  it,  for  I  feel  that  I  have 
reached  the  lowest  step  on  the  ladder  of  dis- 
enchantment. But  what  matter?  Are  we  on 
earth  to  be  happy  ?  Have  we  the  right  to  be 
happy  ?  We  have  put  out  to  sea,  and  the  will 
of  the  winds  and  the  waves  must  be  done." 

That  was  apparently  written  in  the  Spring  of 
!^37,  when  the  children  were  ill.  Later  letters 
show  Michel  anxious  for  the  renewal  of  relations 
that  have  been  suspended  and  George  Sand 
refusing.  "  I  cannot  and  I  will  not"  she  writes, 
and  adds : — 

"Some  day,  perhaps,    Michel  will  realise  that 
223 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

he  has  cruelly  broken  the  most  devoted  heart 
that  ever  beat  for  him.  If  that  time  ever  comes, 
and  he  desires  my  friendship,  he  will  find  in  me 
a  sentiment  which  age  will  have  rendered  more 
calm,  but  not  less  sincere  and  tender.  But  that 
time  is  far  remote.  Years  will  be  needed  to 
close  the  deep  wound  in  my  heart." 

Michel,  she  continues,  has  expressed  the  wish 
to  see  her,  but  she  would  prefer  not  to  meet  him. 
She  was  quite  sure  that  pride  rather  than  affec- 
tion was  the  motive  of  his  wish.  Would  Girerd 
make  excuses  to  him,  and  tell  him  that  she  was 
going  away  to  an  uncertain  destination  ?  But 
Michel  persisted.  Instead  of  going  to  visit 
George  Sand,  he  peremptorily  summoned  her 
to  visit  him  ;  and  then  she  writes  : — 

11  You  think  I  didn't  go  ?  Then  you  are 
wrong.  I  galloped  eight  leagues  on  a  chilly 
evening  to  see  him  for  a  moment.  He  spent 
two  days  with  me.  He  was  on  his  way  to 
Niort ;  and,  on  his  way  back,  though  he  had 
sworn  he  would  never  set  foot  at  Nohant  again, 
he  turned  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  His 
kindness  and  tenderness  are  inconceivable  after 
all  the  cruel  incidents  in  our  relations.  For  the 
rest,  our  respective  positions  are  changed  ;  and 
there  have  been  such  strange  complications  that 
I  can  only  tell  you  about  them  by  word  of 
mouth.  .  .  .  Come  and  see  me." 

And  the  nature  of  those  complications  ?     The 
224 


Eugfene  Pelletan 

next  letter,  written  only  a  few  days  later,  gives 
us  a  glimpse  of  them. 

"  I  think  I  have  at  last  struck  down  the  dragon, 
and  I  believe  that  this  tenacious  passion  which 
was  destroying  all  my  faculties  has  been  cured  by 
a  gentler  affection,  less  enthusiastic,  but  not  less 
durable.  Michel  is  now  safely  sheltered  from 
any  despite  that  I  might  have  felt  towards  him. 
He  is  in  the  element  in  which  alone  he  can  live. 
From  time  to  time  he  sees  some  of  my  friends 
and  tells  them  that  I  am  the  only  woman  he 
ever  loved.  What  a  love !  But  I  no  longer 
feel  hurt.  Calm  and  the  sense  of  justice  have 
re-entered  my  heart ;  and  I  love  him  to-day  on 
the  same  terms  on  which  you  love  him  yourself. 
At  least  I  flatter  myself  that  it  is  so,  and  hope 
that  it  is  so,  and  labour  to  make  it  so." 

And  this  means,  when  we  name  the  names, 
and  put  the  dots  upon  the  i's,  that  Eugene 
Pelletan  had  resigned  his  position  as  Maurice 
Sand's  tutor  and  that  Felicien  Mallenlle  had 
been  appointed  in  his  place. 

Madame  Karenine,  in  her  Life  of  George 
Sand,  makes  an  unnecessary  puzzle  of  Pelletan's 
departure.  Apparently  she  has  a  lurking  sus- 
picion that  he  played  the  part  of  Joseph  in  the 
house  of  Potiphar's  wife ;  but  that  explanation 
is  hardly  needed.  He  was  a  very  young  man, 
with  a  very  keen  sense  of  his  personal  dignity  ; 
r  225 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

and  that  dignity  had  not  been  respected.  The 
apple-pie  beds,  the  false  sausage,  and  the 
other  "poissons  dAvril"  upset  his  unstable 
equanimity.  He  wrote  to  a  friend  complaining 
of  the  strange  treatment  accorded  to  tutors  in 
that  extraordinary  establishment.  George  Sand 
saw  the  letter,  suspected  its  contents,  opened  it 
and  read  it.  It  was  inevitable,  after  that,  that  he 
must  either  resign  or  be  dismissed ;  and  we  find 
a  not  unnatural  reflection  of  the  rupture  in  the 
fact  that  he  and  his  pupil  cut  each  other  when 
they  passed  in  the  streets  of  Paris.  Mallefille 
succeeded  him.  First  he  was  private  tutor ; 
then  he  was  private  secretary  ;  then  he  supplied 
that  gentle  affection,  devoid  of  enthusiasm,  which 
consoled  George  Sand  for  the  loss  of  the  love  of 
Michel.  Or,  at  any  rate,  he  supplied  a  portion 
of  it  for  a  period. 

The  episode  is  rather  obscure.  George  Sand 
and  Mallefille,  living  in  the  same  house,  had  no 
need  to  correspond  ;  consequently  theje  are  no 
letters  to  be  quoted  ;  and  the  story,  in  so  far  as 
it  can  be  reconstructed,  is  full  of  contradictions. 
George  Sand,  in  writing  about  Mallefille,  always 
took  the  tone  of  one  who  was  suffering  a  fool,  and 
not  suffering  him  particularly  gladly.  She  laughed 
at  him  for  having  "a  beard  seven  feet  long,"  and 
also  for  not  having  any  sense.  She  expressed  the 
wish  that  he  would  be  more  intelligent  for  a 
change,  and  the  opinion  that  some  foolish  pro- 
ceeding of  his  on  which  she  commented  was 

226 


Falicien  Mallefille 

"even  more  foolish  than  usual."  And  we  find 
Madame  d'Agoult  writing  : — 

"  Do  you  remember  how  we  quarrelled  about 

M ?     How  ugly,  and  stupid,  and  silly,   and 

vain,  and  insufferable  he  was!  You  seemed  to 
be  animated  towards  him  with  such  furious 
rage  as  Homer  puts  in  the  hearts  of  Juno  and 
Venus ;  and  I  was  obliged  to  tell  you  a  mezza 
voce  that  I  thought  it  was  necessary  to  try  to 
live  on  terms  of  peace  with  other  people's 
little  vanities,  though  living  on  terms  with  one's 
own  vanity  was  perhaps  the  most  difficult  task 
of  all." 

And  yet  Mallefille,  however  conceited,  was  not 
a  fool,  for  he  lived  not  only  to  "  ghost"  for 
Dumas,  but  also  to  write  plays  for  the  national 
theatre,  and  to  be  the  diplomatic  representative 
of  his  country  at  the  Portuguese  Court  ;  and  his 
status,  in  spite  of  the  disdain  expressed  for  him, 
was  indubitably  that  of  a  lover.  Balzac  bears 
witness  to  the  fact  in  one  of  the  Lettres  a 
L'Etrangere ;  and  so  do  the  journalists  who 
wrote  his  obituary  notices  when  he  died.  In 
later  life,  we  gather  from  these  necrologies,  he 
became  the  intimate  friend  of  Jules  Sandeau ; 
and  the  two  men  used  often  to  sit  together,  ex- 
changing reminiscences  of  the  woman  who  had 
been  the  mistress  of  both  of  them. 

It  is  a  confused  and  confusing  condition  of 
227 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

things,  and  one  must  reconcile  the  conflicting 
facts  as  best  one  can.  Presumably  Mallefille's 
alleged  lack  of  intelligence  was  only  the 
gaucherie  of  an  unformed  youth ;  and  it  also 
seems  fair  to  presume  that  that  gaucherie  was 
more  objectionable  to  Madame  d'Agoult  than 
to  George  Sand  herself.  At  all  events,  his 
gaucherie  ultimately  caused  quarrels  between 
them,  a  good  deal  more  deadly  than  those  re- 
ferred to  in  the  letter  quoted. 

Mallefille  presumed  to  write  a  letter  to  Madame 
d'Agoult,  and  Madame  d'Agoult  took  offence,  and 
held  George  Sand  responsible.  George  Sand, 
she  said,  had  had  Mallefille  in  the  house  quite 
long  enough  to  teach  him  the  art  of  polite  letter 
writing  ;  whence  it  may  be  inferred  that  Mallefille 
had  expressed  himself  without  sufficient  regard 
for  the  reverence  due  to  ladies  of  the  ancienne 
noblesse  even  when  they  run  from  their  husbands 
to  live  with  wandering  musicians.  George  Sand 
showed  the  letter  to  Mallefille,  and  he  also  insisted 
that  the  fault  was  hers ;  so  that  there  ensued  a 
lively  three-cornered  duel  of  recriminations. 

The  recriminations,  however,  were  not  the 
immediate  cause  of  Mallefille's  withdrawal  from 
Nohant ;  and  his  place  in  George  Sand's  life  may 
be  best  defined  as  that  of  a  later  analogue  of 
Pagello.  Just  as  Pagello  had  been  her  temporary 
refuge  from  Mussel's  passionate  extravagances, 
so  she  fell  back  for  a  while  upon  Mallefille  when 
Michel  became  too  dictatorial.  The  force  of  habit 

228 


The  Errand  of  Pierre  Leroux 

had  made  a  lover  necessary ;  but  she  wanted 
a  lover  who  would  not  impose  too  severe  a 
strain  upon  a  heart  that  had  latterly  been  over- 
taxed— a  lover  too  weak  to  make  trouble  or  cause 
remorse  when  the  time  came,  as  she  foresaw  that 
it  would,  to  treat  him  badly. 

In  the  course  of  six  months  or  so,  the  time 
came,  and  she  did  treat  Mallefille  badly,  and 
with  a  sans-g£ne  that  was  characteristic  of  her. 
Tiring  of  intimacy,  she  suspended  it,  with  as  little 
to-do  as  a  sultan  makes  when  deposing  a  harem 
favourite,  proposing  that  the  tutor,  though  ex- 
cluded from  her  embraces,  should  still  live  in  her 
house  and  teach  her  son. 

As  no  letters  passed,  it  is  impossible  to  say 
exactly  what  was  Mallefille's  attitude  towards  the 
proposition.  Apparently  he  was  willing  to  accept 
his  diminished  status — believing,  perhaps,  that  he 
had  only  been  provisionally  degraded — until  he 
discovered  that  a  rival  had  supplanted  him.  He 
soon  suspected  a  rival,  however  ;  and  presently 
we  find  George  Sand  writing  to  her  new  friend, 
Pierre  Leroux,  that  Mallefille  has  been  making 
scandals  about  her,  and  provoking  her  friends  to 
duels.  For  the  moment,  she  says,  he  seems  to 
have  got  over  his  excitement ;  but  she  fears  that 
the  trouble  may  recommence  at  any  time.  Will 
Leroux,  therefore,  please  go  to  see  him,  and  try 
to  calm  him  down  ? 

"  When    the    question   of    women    comes   up 
229 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

between  you,"  she  says,  "tell  him  emphatically 
that  women  do  not  belong  to  men  by  the  right 
of  brute  force,  and  that  he  will  gain  nothing  by 
cutting  anybody's  throat."  And  she  adds  :  "  Pray 
be  the  saviour  of  the  drowning  man,  and  the 
consoler  of  the  unknown  martyr  who  has  adopted 
a  profession  which  he  detests,  but  will  not 
abandon  it  because  of  the  responsibility  that 
rests  upon  his  shoulders." 

Pierre  Leroux  went  upon  this  .strange  errand, 
and  discharged  it  with  success.  Then  he  re- 
turned to  Nohant  and  became  the  successor  of 
the  man  whom  he  had  "saved." 


230 


CHAPTER   XXI 

Balzac's  visit  to  Nohant— His  estimate  of  George  Sand's  character 
— Pierre  Leroux  dismissed  to  the  empyrean — The  origin  of 
the  amour  with  Chopin. 

BALZAC'S  report  to  Madame  de  Hanska1  of  his 
visit  to  George  Sand  at  Nohant  runs,  the  in- 
essential being  eliminated,  as  follows  : — 

"  CARA  CONTESSINA, — Hearing  that  George 
Sand  was  at  her  country  seat  at  Nohant,  a  short 
distance  from  Frapesle,  I  went  to  call  on  her ;  so 
you  shall  have  the  autographs  you  want ;  and 
as  you  are  as  inquisitive  as  you  are  eminent — 
or  as  eminent  as  you  are  inquisitive — I  will  tell 
you  the  story  of  my  visit. 

"  I  arrived  at  Nohant  on  the  Saturday  before 
Ash  Wednesday  at  about  half-past  seven  in  the 
evening,  and  I  found  our  comrade  George  Sand 
in  her  dressing-gown,  smoking  her  after-dinner 
cigar  by  the  fireside  in  an  immense  and  lonely 
room.  She  was  wearing  pretty  yellow  slippers 
ornamented  with  fringes,  neat  stockings,  and  red 
pantaloons.  That  was  her  moral  aspect ;  phys- 

1  The  "  Etrangere  "  with  whom  Balzac  corresponded  for  so  long, 
and  whom  he  ultimately  married. 

231 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

ically  she  had  a  double  chin  like  an  ecclesiastic. 
In  spite  of  her  fearful  misfortunes,  she  has  not  a 
white  hair  on  her  head ;  her  dark  complexion 
remains  unaltered ;  her  eyes  are  as  bright  as 
ever.  .  .  .  She  has  been  at  Nohant  for  a  year, 
in  a  melancholy  mood,  working  terribly  hard. 
Her  manner  of  life  bears  a  close  resemblance  to 
my  own.  She  goes  to  bed  at  six  in  the  morning, 
and  gets  up  at  midday,  whereas  I  go  to  bed  at 
six  in  the  evening  and  get  up  at  midnight ;  but, 
naturally,  I  have  adapted  my  habits  to  hers,  and 
for  three  days  we  have  regularly  gossiped  from 
five  in  the  evening — after  dinner — until  five  in 
the  morning,  with  the  result  that  I  have  come  to 
know  her  better  than  during  the  four  years  when 
she  used  to  visit  me  from  time  to  time — better 
than  when  she  was  in  love  with  Sandeau,  better 
than  when  she  was  living  with  Musset. 

"  There  was  some  advantage  in  my  seeing  her, 
for  we  exchanged  confidences  concerning  Sandeau. 
I  was  the  last  man  to  blame  her  for  leaving  him  ; 
to-day  I  only  feel  a  profound  compassion  for  her. 
She  was  still  more  unhappy,  however,  with  Musset  ; 
and  now  she  is  living  in  complete  retirement,  con- 
demning both  marriage  and  love,  since  both  these 
estates  have  brought  her  nothing  but  deceptions. 

"Her  male  complement  was  rare — that  is  all 
that  there  is  to  be  said  ;  and  her  male  complement 
will  be  the  more  difficult  to  find  because  she  is 
not  amiable  and  cannot  win  affection.  She  is 
a  female  bachelor,  she  is  an  artist,  she  is  great, 

232 


A  Visit  from  Balzac 

she  is  generous,  she  is  devoted,  she  is  chaste. 
Her  dominant  characteristics  are  those  of  a  man. 
Therefore,  she  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  woman. 
While  talking  to  her  for  three  days,  and  opening 
my  heart  to  her  on  all  subjects,  I  never  once 
arrived  at  that  superficial  gallantry  of  manner 
which  one  is  expected,  in  France  and  Poland, 
to  display  in  conversing  with  every  woman.  I 
felt  that  I  was  chatting  with  a  comrade.  .  .  .  We 
discussed  with  a  high  seriousness,  a  good  faith, 
a  candour  and  a  conscientiousness  worthy  of 
great  shepherds  guiding  human  flocks,  the  great 
questions  of  marriage  and  liberty.  For,  as  she 
said  with  an  immense  pride  to  which  I  myself 
should  not  have  ventured  to  aspire:  "Our 
writings  are  paving  the  way  for  a  revolution  in 
the  morals  of  the  future,  but  I  see  the  drawbacks 
of  the  one  condition  as  clearly  as  those  of  the 
other."  And  we  sat  up  all  night  discussing  this 
great  problem.  ...  I  have  made  great  headway 
if  I  have  persuaded  Madame  Dudevant  to 
recognise  the  necessity  of  marriage ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  she  will  come  to  believe  in  it,  and  I 
think  I  have  done  her  some  good  in  demonstrating 
it  to  her. 

"  She  is  an  excellent  mother,  adored  by  her 
children  ;  but  she  dresses  her  daughter  Solange 
as  a  boy — and  that  is  bad.  Morally  she  is  like 
a  lad  of  twenty ;  for,  in  her  heart  of  hearts,  she 
is  chaste  and  a  prude.  It  is  only  in  externals  that 
she  comports  herself  as  an  artist.  She  smokes 

233 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

a  great  deal  more  than  is  good  for  her ;  perhaps 
she  is  a  little  too  fond  of  assuming  the  airs  of  a 
princess,  and  I  am  convinced  that  she  drew  a 
faithful  picture  of  herself  in  the  princess  of  the 
Secretaire  Intime.  .  .  .  Like  myself,  she  laughs 
at  the  glory  which  she  has  achieved,  and  has  a 
profound  contempt  for  the  public,  which  she  styles 
'Jumento.' 

11  If  I  were  to  relate  to  you  this  woman's 
immense  and  secret  devotion  to  two  men,  you 
would  say  that  angels  and  devils  have  nothing  in 
common.  All  her  follies  are  titles  to  glory  in 
the  eyes  of  those  whose  souls  are  noble.  She 
has  been  duped  by  Dorval,  by  Bocage,  by 
Lamennais.  In  the  same  way  she  is  the  dupe 
of  Liszt  and  Madame  d'Agoult — but  she  is 
beginning  to  see  it,  for  she  has  a  powerful  in- 
telligence, capable  of  recovering  lost  ground. 

"  Apropos  of  Liszt  and  Madame  d'Agoult,  she 
gave  me  the  subject  of  Les  GaUriens,  or 
Amours  forces.  I  am  going  to  make  some- 
thing of  it,  for  she  in  her  position  cannot." 

That  was  written  on  March  2,  1838.  From 
the  allusion  to  the  Secretaire  Intime  we  may 
gather  that  Mallefille  was  still  in  favour ;  while 
from  the  nature  of  the  allusion,  and  from  the 
environing  remarks,  we  may  also  infer  that 
Mallefille  was  not  taken  seriously.  He  had  no 
hold  upon  his  mistress  through  passion,  like 
Musset ;  he  could  not  dominate  her  through 

234 


Pierre  Leroux 

his  intellect  like  Michel ;  there  was  hardly  even 
any  sentimental  link  between  them.  He  was 
merely  a  nonentity  on  whom  she  imposed  an 
obligation ;  and  it  seemed  absurd  to  her  that  he 
should  be  angry  when  released  from  it.  She 
had  not  intended  to  engage  his  heart ;  he  had 
therefore  no  right  to  assume  that  his  vanity  was 
compromised.  He  was  an  amorous  boy,  and  must 
be  taught  to  see  things  in  their  true  proportion. 
Leroux  must  call  on  him,  and  lecture  him  ;  his 
reward  should  be  to  supplant  the  youth  whom  he 
admonished. 

And  so,  as  we  have  seen,  it  happened ;  only 
Leroux  was  another  of  those  who  passed  but 
lightly  through  George  Sand's  life,  leaving  but 
little  trace  behind. 

His  education  had  been  interrupted  through 
the  financial  embarrassments  of  his  parents. 
Withdrawn  from  the  Ecole  Polytechnique,  he 
had  had  to  make  a  fresh  start  in  life  as  a  stone- 
mason and  a  compositor,  and  had  found  that  the 
way  out  lay  through  journalism.  He  had  edited 
the  Globe,  making  it  the  organ  of  Saint- 
Simonism,  but  had  found  himself ,  unable  to 
go  all  the  way  with  Pere  Enfantin.  He  could 
not  accept  free  love  in  theory,  though  in  practice 
the  flesh  might  be  weak.  So  he  seceded,  and 
thought  out  a  system  of  his  own — an  eclectic 
system  to  which  Buddha  and  Pythagoras  con- 
tributed— and,  if  only  he  had  had  more  followers, 
might  have  become  a  great  intellectual  leader. 

235 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

George  Sand,  however,  was  a  follower — at  all 
events  for  a  season.  An  "  influence"  had  come 
to  be  as  necessary  to  her  as  a  lover.  Only  by 
pot-boiling  under  an  influence  could  she  persuade 
herself  that  she  raised  pot-boiling  to  the  dignity 
of  preaching.  It  was  not  necessary  that  the  lover 
should  also  be  the  influence,  or  that  the  influence 
should  also  be  the  lover ;  but  the  coincidence 
tended  to  occur  from  time  to  time,  and  it  occurred 
in  the  case  of  Pierre  Leroux,  though  their  intimacy 
was  only,  as  it  were,  a  passing  salutation. 

He  was  an  absent-minded  man,  whose  proper 
dwelling-place  was  in  the  clouds  of  abstract 
speculation.  His  helplessness  in  the  ordinary 
situations  of  everyday  life  is  illustrated  by  the 
account  which  he  gave  to  George  Sand  of  a  call 
which  he  paid  upon  Madame  d'Agoult :  "I  was 
all  splashed  with  mud,  and  felt  ashamed  of  myself, 
and  tried  to  hide  in  a  corner.  The  lady  came  and 
spoke  to  me  with  incredible  kindness.  How 
beautiful  she  was  !  "  But  he  could  not  remember 
whether  she  was  short  or  tall,  or  fair  or  dark,  and, 
asked  how  he  knew  her  to  be  beautiful,  could  only 
answer,  "  I  don't  know.  But  she  was  carrying 
a  beautiful  bouquet,  and  I  inferred  that  she 
herself  must  also  be  beautiful  and  good." 

That  is  how  the  philosopher  dreamed  his  way 
through  the  world  ;  and  George  Sand's  task  was 
to  draw  the  dreamer  down  to  the  realities.  She 
and  Madame  Marliani  had  some  plan  for  secretly 
defraying  the  cost  of  the  education  of  his  children  ; 

236 


Fellow-Fighters 

but  he  found  them  out,  and  his  pride  brought  the 
scheme  to  nothing.  Calumny  accused  them  of 
getting  drunk  together,  on  Sunday  afternoons,  in 
suburban  restaurants,  and  reeling  home  arm-in- 
arm ;  but  the  charge  is  not  very  credible.  The 
real  descent  from  the  clouds  only  took  place  when 
he  became  her  lover ;  and  the  re-ascent  was  a 
natural  and  easy  process.  Leroux  was  not  sensi- 
tive, like  Mallefille.  His  love  was  of  his  life  a 
thing  apart — an  act  of  civility,  perhaps — an  in- 
cident, at  any  rate,  to  which  he  attached  very  little 
importance.  To  get  rid  of  him  was  as  easy  as 
saying  good-bye  at  the  end  of  an  afternoon  call. 
There  was  no  breach  in  the  continuity  of  either 
influence  or  friendship  :  the  friendship  was  merely 
transferred  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  plane. 

Pierre  Leroux  and  George  Sand,  therefore, 
ceasing  to  be  lovers,  continued  to  be  fellow-fighters 
in  Humanitarian  causes.  They  even  started  the 
Reviie  Independante  together  because,  when 
Leroux  offered  to  write  an  article  on  "  God  "  for 
the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  Buloz  declared  the 
subject  to  be  "lacking  in  actuality."  But  the 
sentimental  connection  was  over  long  before  that 
alliance  was  concluded,  and  was  never  to  be 
renewed.  From  that  point  of  view  they  were 
ships  that  had  passed  in  the  night  and  spoken 
each  other  in  passing.  Leroux's  course  was 
presently  to  lead  him  through  politics  to  exile. 
George  Sand's  had  already  led  her  to  the  Balearic 
Isles  with  Chopin. 

237 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

She  had  known  the  musician  for  a  couple  of 
years — quite  uneventfully.  He  was  not  disposed 
to  like  her,  and  Madame  d'Agoult  had  done  her 
best  to  prejudice  her  against  him.  "  Chopin 
coughs  very  gracefully,"  she  had  written ;  and 
also  :  "  Chopin  is  the  most  inconstant  of  men  ; 
there  is  nothing  permanent  about  him  but  his 
cough."  And  George  Sand  had  not  cared 
whether  that  was  so  or  not ;  for  those  were  the 
days  of  her  devotion  to  Michel  de  Bourges. 

Presently,  however,  came  the  rupture  with 
Michel ;  and  after  the  rupture  with  Michel  came 
the  rupture  with  Mallefille  ;  and  Leroux  hardly 
counted,  but  was  ready  to  be  dismissed  to  the 
empyrean  at  any  time.  That  was  the  condition 
of  things  when  George  Sand  and  Chopin  met 
again. 

He  was  sad — so  the  story  goes — for  a  woman 
whom  he  had  loved  had  proved  untrue.  Marie 
Wodzinska — but  that  story  would  be  out  of  place 
upon  this  page.  He  mourned  for  Marie 
Wodzinska ;  and  the  theme  on  which  he  impro- 
vised as  he  sat  at  the  piano  was  a  lamentation  ; 
and  George  Sand  stood  beside  him — listening 
— leaning  towards  him — looking  into  his  eyes — 
intoxicating  him  with  the  odour  of  violets.  He 
finished,  and  looked  up,  and  met  her  gaze  ;  and 
she  bent  down,  without  a  word,  and  kissed  him 
on  the  lips. 

According  to  one  version  of  the  story,  she  thus 
kissed  Chopin  on  the  first  occasion  on  which  she 

238 


Chopin 

met  him,  without  even  waiting  for  him  to  be 
presented  to  her ;  but  that  seems  to  be  untrue. 
She  waited  two  years,  and  dismissed  three  lovers, 
before  taking  the  initiative  ;  but  it  was  she  and 
not  Chopin  who  took  it.  He  accepted  the  gift 
which  she  offered ;  and  her  kiss  sealed  him  to  her 
for  eight  years. 


239 


CHAPTER   XXII 

Chopin's  early  struggles  —  His  sudden  success  —  His  proposal  of 
marriage  to  Marie  Wodzinska  —  The  meeting  with  George 
Sand  and  the  decision  to  travel  together  to  Majorca. 

FR£D£RIC  CHOPIN  was  the  son  of  Nicolas  Chopin, 
who  kept  a  boarding-school  at  Warsaw.  Of 
course  he  was  precocious,  and  of  course  he  was 
petted  by  a  society  to  which  he  did  not,  by  birth, 
belong  :  the  biographies  of  great  musicians  always 
run  upon  those  lines.  Of  course,  too,  he  left  his 
little  provincial  town  to  conquer  the  capitals ; 
and  of  course  he  met  with  sentimental  adventures 
by  the  way. 

He  was  a  man  of  genius — as  much  greater  than 
Liszt  as  Liszt  was  greater  than  Thalberg ;  an 
artist  as  well  as  a  virtuoso  ;  a  creator  as  well  as 
an  executant ;  self-confident,  but  not  self-conscious  ; 
with  an  artist's  narrow  intensity  of  vision,  purpose, 
and  interests.  He  was  not,  like  Liszt,  blown 
about  by  every  wind  of  fashionable  doctrine,  but 
accepted,  without  question,  the  Catholic  creed  of 
his  fathers.  Nor  did  he,  like  Liszt,  run  after 
women.  He  needed  their  sympathy,  indeed  ; 
but  it  came  to  him  unsought,  and  it  never  filled 
his  life.  He  let  himself  be  loved — and  waited 

240 


Chopin's  Early  Struggles 

upon — and  went  on  with  his  work.  Love  was 
for  him  a  comforting  balm,  not  a  consuming 
fire. 

His  early  struggles  in  Paris  though  short  were 
rather  sharp.  He  gave  a  concert  and  lost  money 
over  it.  Kalkbrenner  assumed  patronising  airs 
and  proposed  to  take  him  as  his  pupil  for  three 
years,  whereas  Chopin  was  quite  sure  that  he 
played  at  least  as  well  as  Kalkbrenner.  He 
husbanded  his  resources  carefully,  but  they  were 
nearly  exhausted.  A  woman  tempted  him.  She 
was  young  and  beautiful,  and  neglected  by  her 
husband,  and  "musical,"  and  she  lived  on  the 
same  staircase  as  the  musician.  Would  he  not 
call  ?  she  asked.  Would  he  not  spend  the  after- 
noon with  her  ?  But  he  refused,  held  back  not  by 
the  principles  of  an  austere  virtue,  but  by  a  sense 
of  shame  at  his  own  poverty.  So  one  gathers 
from  the  cry  of  pain  that  escaped  him  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend.  "  At  least,"  he  wrote,  "  I  should  have 
found  a  good  chimney  corner  and  a  good  fire. 
Ah !  How  I  should  like  to  warm  myself!  "  But 
he  was  proud,  and  preferred  to  shiver. 

The  day  came  when  he  nearly  had  to  acknow- 
ledge himself  beaten.  He  even  made  up  his 
mind  to  leave  Europe  and  try  his  fortune  in 
America.  "  To-morrow,"  he  wrote  to  his  parents, 
"  I  shall  cross  the  sea ; "  but  at  the  eleventh  hour 
an  accident  saved  him  from  that  necessity.  His 
compatriot,  Prince  Valentin  Radziwill,  met  him 
in  the  street,  and  took  him,  the  same  evening, 
Q  241 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

to  a  reception  given  by  Baron  James  de  Roths- 
child. He  played,  and  triumphed.  Pupils 
offered  themselves ;  invitations  were  showered 
upon  him.  He  became  of  a  sudden  the  fashion 
—the  darling  of  the  drawing-rooms — the  rival, 
though  also  the  friend  of  Liszt. 

That  was  towards  the  end  of  1831  ;  and  for 
five  years  from  that  date  Chopin  was  both  pros- 
perous and  happy.  "  Me  voila  lanct!  "  he  writes. 
"  I  mix  in  the  very  best  society.  I  have  my 
place  in  it  beside  ambassadors,  princes,  and 
ministers,  though  how  I  got  there  I  don't  know. 
.  .  .  Pixis  has  put  my  name  on  his  orchestral 
variations.  Kalkbrenner  himself  has  taken  one 
of  my  mazurkas  as  the  theme  of  one  of  his 
improvisations.  Conservatoire  pupils  —  pupils, 
that  is  to  say,  of  Moscheles  and  Herz — artists 
of  consummate  merit — come  to  me  for  lessons, 
and  assign  me  a  position  in  the  art  of  music  at 
least  equal  to  that  of  Field.  ...  I  have  five 
lessons  to  give  in  the  course  of  the  morning ; 
but  don't  imagine  that  I  am  making  my  fortune. 
My  hired  carriage,  and  my  white  gloves,  without 
which  I  should  not  be  'good  form,'  cost  me 
more  than  I  am  earning." 

The  last  statement,  of  course,  was  a  playful 
exaggeration.  Chopin  was  not  amassing  a 
fortune,  but  his  income  sufficed  for  his  needs. 
He  could  afford  to  break  up  the  furniture 
when  incompetent  pupils  struck  false  notes— 
and  sometimes  he  did.  He  could  afford  to  be 

242 


Five  Years  of  Happiness 

arrogant  with  bourgeois  who  tried  to  patronise 
him,  and  sometimes  he  was.  This  is  the  period 
of  the  famous  retort,  "  Really,  sir,  I  have  eaten 
so  little,"  discharged  at  the  nouveau  riche  who 
had  invited  him  to  a  dinner  party  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  a  gratuitous  musical  entertainment. 
His  real  friends,  in  whose  society  he  lived 
naturally  and  happily,  were  musicians  and  other 
artists  :  Berlioz,  Liszt,  and  Meyerbeer  ;  Delacroix  ; 
Nourrit ;  his  compatriot  poets  Mickiewics  and 
Slowacki ;  and  Henri  Heine,  who  exclaimed  in 
his  enthusiasm,  "  Cherished  child  of  the  Muses, 
Polish  by  birth,  German  by  poetry,  Italian  by 
art,  French  by  your  lucidity  and  elegance,  you 
are  the  fellow-countryman  of  all  of  us." 

It  was  during  these  five  years  of  happiness, 
too,  that  Chopin  visited  Germany.  He  went  to 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  to  Carlsbad,  to  Dresden,  to 
Marienbad.  He  saw  his  father,  whose  ailments 
had  driven  him  to  drink  the  waters ;  he  met 
Mendelssohn,  and  Schumann,  and  Clara  Wieck, 
and  Wenzel.  Above  all,  he  met — and  loved — 
and  was  separated  from — Marie  Wodzinska. 

They  had  met  before.  Her  brothers — one  of 
them  became  one  of  Chopin's  biographers — had 
been  pupils  at  Nicolas  Chopin's  boarding-school  ; 
and  she  had  been  taken  there  by  her  mother  to  visit 
them.  He  had  even  given  her  music  lessons,  when 
she  was  a  child  of  five  and  he  a  child  of  ten,  dressed 
in  the  beautiful  velvet  suit  to  which  he  attributed 
his  first  artistic  triumphs.  They  had  exchanged 

243 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

such  vows  as  such  children  do  exchange,  and 
grew  up  remembering  them  ;  and  so  the  time 
passed  until  Fritz — she  called  him  Fritz — went 
abroad  to  seek  fame  and  fortune  in  a  foreign 
land,  and  Marie  was  taken  by  her  mother  to 
finish  her  education  at  Geneva. 

Their  hearts  were  hardly  faithful — exclusively 
faithful,  at  all  events — in  the  years  that  followed. 
That  would  have  been  too  much  to  expect, 
seeing  that  they  were  both  young,  and  both,  in 
their  several  ways,  successful.  Chopin,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  a  success  in  the  salon  as  well  as 
the  concert  hall  ;  and  Marie  Wodzinska  was 
surrounded  by  admirers.  Louis  Napoleon,  then 
an  exile  in  Switzerland  and  an  artillery  officer 
at  Thun,  was  one  of  them,  and  called  her  his 
"dark-eyed  daughter  of  Euterpe."  The  Polish 
poet  Slovacki,  already  mentioned,  was  another. 
Sometimes  Marie  Wodzinska  corresponded  with 
Chopin  while  flirting  with  Slovacki ;  sometimes 
she  corresponded  with  Slovacki  while  flirting  with 
Chopin.  While  travelling  about  the  Continent, 
she  contrived  to  meet  them  alternately  in  different 
towns,  and  she  seems  to  have  inspired  them 
both :  Chopin  to  waltzes,  Slovacki  to  his 
famous  poem  entitled  En  Suisse.  Evidently 
she  flirted  her  way  through  life,  unconscious  of 
impending  tragedy. 

The  tragedy — if  tragedy  it   is  to  be  called— 
came   to    its  crisis  when,   after   long   periods   of 
dalliance    at    Dresden   and    Marienbad,    Chopin 

244 


Marie  Wodzinska 

mustered  his  courage  and  declared  himself,  pro- 
posing marriage.  That,  of  course,  was  the  cue 
for  the  head  of  the  family  to  enter  and  forbid 
the  banns.  He  was  a  nobleman.  The  daughter 
of  a  nobleman  could  not  marry  a  musician — 
least  of  all  a  musician  whom  the  world  only 
knew  as  a  strolling  pianoforte  player.  It  sounds 
a  hard  saying  to  us  who  know  Chopin ;  but 
the  prejudice  is  hardly  peculiar  to  the  period. 
Most  noblemen  would  take  the  same  tone  towards 
pianist  suitors  even  to-day ;  and  it  sounds,  in 
view  of  all  the  circumstances,  a  good  deal  less 
offensive  than  "  La  Comtesse  d'Agoult  ne  sera 
jamais  Madame  Liszt."  That  was  a  case  of 
feline  and  improper  pride.  Of  poor  Marie 
Wodzinska  one  can  say  no  more  than  that  she 
feared  her  fate  too  much,  and  that  her  desert 
was  small.  Her  lover  pressed  her  to  defy 
authority ;  but  her  answer,  as  she  confided  to 
her  brother,  was  "that  she  would  never 
oppose  the  will  of  her  parents,  and  did  not 
think  she  would  be  able  to  influence  their 
will,  but  that,  whatever  happened,  her  heart 
would  always,  always,  gratefully  remember  his 
affection." 

So  they  parted ;  and,  a  year  later,  Marie 
married  Count  Skarbeck.  The  marriage  was 
unhappy,  and  the  Pope  was  persuaded  to  de- 
clare it  null ;  but  a  second  union  with  a 
M.  Orpiszewski  was  more  fortunate.  The  wife 
nursed  the  husband  for  eighteen  years,  and  sur- 

245 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

vived  him,  and  still  played  Chopin's  music  in 
preference  to  any  other ;  while  Chopin,  on  his 
part,  kept  the  faded  rose  which  she  had  given 
him  at  Dresden.  It  was  found,  after  his  death, 
in  an  envelope  tied  up  with  black  ribbon,  in 
sign  of  mourning,  and  bearing  the  Polish  in- 
scription "  Moi  bie  da  "  —  which  means,  being 
interpreted,  "my  trouble,  my  grief,  my  regrets, 
my  torment,  and  my  burden." 

No  doubt  the  rose  did  mean  all  that  for 
him — at  certain  hours.  It  stood  for  an  illusion 
in  which  he  could  always  believe  because  he 
had  never  put  it  to  the  test  -  -  the  mirage 
which  had  never  dissolved  because  he  had 
always  kept  his  distance  from  it.  He  had 
dreamt  of  settling  down  with  Marie  in  some 
provincial  Polish  place,  teaching  music  in  happy 
obscurity,  and  so  finding  an  escape  from  life : 
he  had  had  no  experience  to  teach  him  that, 
wherever  the  escape  from  life  may  lie,  the 
path  to  it  is  not  through  the  Philistia  of  the 
provinces ;  he  could  dream  his  dream  over 
again  as  often  as  his  heart  was  sore  and 
tired. 

Only  that  did  not  mean  that  he  was  inconsol- 
able— far  from  it.  The  more  acute  his  distress, 
the  greater  his  need  for  consolation ;  and  his 
sense  of  the  need  of  an  escape  from  life  was  the 
more  intense  because  the  strain  of  overwork  and 
excessive  excitement  had  told  upon  him,  and  he 
was  ill.  Though  doctors  denied  it,  the  seeds  of 

246 


Departure  for  Majorca 

phthisis  had  almost  certainly  been  sown.  He 
needed  love ;  and  he  also  needed  rest  and  sun- 
shine— to  be  waited  upon  and  worshipped  while 
he  basked  in  one  of  the  back-waters  of  life.  That 
was  his  condition  —  moral  and  physical — when 
George  Sand  listened  to  his  playing,  and  flashed 
her  luminous  dark  eyes  on  him,  and  kissed  him 
on  the  lips,  and  made  him  come  to  see  her  every 
day,  and  finally  carried  him  off  to  spend  a  winter 
with  her  in  the  Balearic  Isles. 

Which  of  the  two  actually  proposed  that  they 
should  travel  together  one  does  not  know. 
Karsowski  says  that  the  suggestion  was  Chopin's  ; 
Liszt  that  it  was  George  Sand's  :  the  statements 
in  UHistoire  de  ma  Vie  are  vague  and  non- 
committal ;  from  Chopin,  owing  to  the  gaps  in 
his  correspondence,  we  have  no  statement  at  all. 
All  that  we  do  know  for  certain  is  that  Chopin 
was  very  far  from  flaunting  his  liaison  after  the 
manner  of  Musset.  Instead  of  making  a  public 
departure  with  his  mistress,  as  Musset  did,  in 
the  public  coach,  he  stole  away  secretly  to  join 
her  at  Perpignan.  Only  a  few  of  his  most  intimate 
friends  were  in  his  confidence,  and  these  he 
implored  not  to  betray  him.  Even  the  selection 
of  such  a  terra  incognita  as  Majorca  in  prefer- 
ence to  any  well-known  winter  city  must,  one 
surmises,  have  been  due  to  his  desire  to  evade 
observation.  The  sudden  change  in  George 
Sand's  plans  disclosed  in  the  Correspondence 
cannot  be  accounted  for  on  any  other  theory. 

247 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Early  in  October  her  intention  was  to  go  to 
either  Switzerland  or  Italy  for  the  benefit  of  her 
son's  health  ;  and  she  wrote  to  that  effect  to  Major 
Adolphe  Pictet,  of  Geneva,  asking  him  for  practical 
information  as  to  prices,  apartments,  etc.,  and 
adding  that  she  wished  to  avoid  "the  English, 
the  water-drinkers,  and  the  trippers."  Perhaps 
he  replied  that,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Geneva, 
trippers  were  hardly  to  be  avoided.  At  all  events, 
we  find  her,  a  little  later  in  the  same  month,  at 
Lyons,  en  route  for  Perpignan,  Port  Vendres, 
Barcelona,  and  Palma  de  Mallorca,  proclaiming 
as  she  went,  in  all  her  many  letters  to  all  her 
many  friends,  the  very  secret  which  her  companion 
was  imploring  his  own  correspondents  to  keep. 


248 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

Life  in  Majorca — The  travellers  find  an  apartment  in  a  Carthusian 
convent  in  the  mountains — Discomfort  and  demoralisation — 
Departure — Chopin  invites  himself  to  Nohant — George  Sand 
hesitates,  but  decides  that  he  may  come. 

GEORGE  SAND  has  written  that  the  journey  to 
Majorca  was  "a  fiasco."  M.  Rocheblave  has 
written  that  "as  a  piece  of  insanity  it  was  the 
proper  pendant  to  the  journey  to  Venice."  The 
fiasco,  however,  was  rather  material  than  moral, 
and  so  was  the  disillusion.  No  ugly  awakening, 
as  at  Venice,  succeeded  the  mad  hallucination. 
One  says  that  confidently  in  spite  of  the  suggestion 
on  the  last  page  of  Un  hiver  a  Majorque,  where 
we  read : — 

"  The  moral  of  this  narrative — childish,  it  may  v 
be,  but  sincere — is  that  man  is  made  to  live,  not 
with  the  trees  and  the  rocks,  and  the  pure  sky, 
and  the  blue  sea,  and  the  flowers  and  the  hills, 
but  with  his  fellow-men. 

"  In  the  stormy  days  of  our  youth  we  imagine 
that  solitude  is  the  great  refuge  against  all  the 
assaults  of  the  world,  the  great  remedy  for  the 
wounds  incurred  in  the  struggle.  It  is  a  grave 

249 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

mistake,  and  the  teaching  of  the  experience  of 
life  is  that,  when  we  cannot  live  in  peace  with  our 
fellow-creatures,  no  poetical  admiration  and  no 
artistic  joy  is  capable  of  filling  the  abysm  that 
has  been  formed  in  the  depths  of  our  soul. 

"  It  had  always  been  my  dream  to  live  in  the 
I  desert ;  and  that  is  a  whim  which  every  good 
dreamer  knows.  But,  take  my  word  for  it,  my 
brothers,  we  have  too  much  love  in  our  hearts  to 
be  able  to  do  without  each  other,  and  our  best 
plan  is  to  put  up  with  each  other.  We  are  like 
children  suckled  at  the  same  breast,  who  quarrel, 
and  even  fight,  but  still  must  not  be  separated." 

All  of  which  may  be  true  enough  in  a  general 
way — it  even  sounds  like  a  reply,  with  poetical 
embellishments,  to  Chopin's  hope  that  he  and 
Marie  Wodzinska  might  find  a  haven  from  the 
storms  of  life  in  the  quietude  of  a  Polish  provincial 
town — but  must  be  read  as  a  piece  of  literature,  or 
rhetoric,  irrelevant  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
journey  to  Majorca.  For  the  strain  upon  affection, 
or  self-sufficiency,  which  the  passage  indicates  was 
never  really  imposed.  The  party — George  Sand 
aged  thirty  -  four,  Chopin  aged  twenty  -  eight, 
Maurice  Sand  aged  fifteen,  and  Solange  aged  ten 
— had  assuredly  resources  enough,  especially  after 
the  importation  of  a  piano,  to  last  them  for  four 
months.  They  had  their  work,  and  the  means 
of  recreation,  and  the  society  of  children,  and  a 
glorious  Southern  climate.  But  they  lacked  the 

250 


The  Balearic  Isles 

comforts,  and  were  hard  put  to  it  to  procure  even 
the  necessaries,  of  life. 

The  Balearic  Isles,  as  the  travellers  discovered, 
had  hardly  yet  emerged  from  barbarism.  Their 
one  link  with  the  external  world  consisted  in  the 
export  trade  in  pigs  ;  and  the  passengers  on  their 
steamboats  travelled,  as  it  were  by  favour,  in  the 
midst  of  pigs — a  squeaking,  grunting  race,  not 
less  liable  than  human  beings  to  sea-sickness. 
Moreover,  even  in  the  capital,  there  was  no  hotel 
or  inn  of  any  sort.  As  George  Sand  says  :— - 

"  At  Palma  one  needs  to  bring  introductions 
to  a  score  of  the  most  prominent  citizens,  and  to 
be  expected  for  several  months  before  one  arrives, 
if  one  is  not  to  find  oneself  obliged  to  sleep  in  the 
open  air.  The  best  that  could  be  done  for  us 
was  to  provide  us  with  two  furnished  (or  rather 
unfurnished)  rooms  in  a  miserable  locality  in  which 
strangers  often  consider  themselves  fortunate  to 
be  supplied  with  a  truckle  bed  apiece,  mattresses 
about  as  soft  as  bags  of  slates,  straw-seated  chairs, 
and,  by  way  of  provisions,  as  much  pepper  and 
garlic  as  they  can  eat." 

Somehow  or  other  they  managed  to  find  a 
furnished  house  which  they  hired  for  ^4  a  month  ; 
and  Chopin  at  any  rate  began  to  be  happy. 

"  Here  I  am,"  he  writes  to  his  friend  Fontana, 
"  in  the  midst  of  palms  and  cedars  and  cactuses  and 

251 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

olives  and  oranges  and  lemons  and  aloes  and  figs 
and  pomegranates.  The  sky  is  a  turquoise  blue, 
the  sea  is  azure,  the  mountains  are  emerald  green  ; 
the  air  is  pure  like  the  air  of  paradise.  All  day 
long  the  sun  shines  and  it  is  warm,  and  every- 
body walks  about  in  summer  clothes.  At  night 
one  hears  guitars  and  serenades.  Vines  are 
festooned  on  immense  balconies  ;  Moorish  walls 
rise  all  around  us ;  the  town,  like  everything  else, 
speaks  of  Africa.  In  a  word,  it  is  an  enchanted 
life  that  we  are  living." 

The  enchantment  was  shortlived,  however,  and 
the  delight  evaporated  when  the  winter  rains 
began  to  fall.  The  house  was  not  built  to  resist 
either  damp  or  cold.  The  plaster  on  the  walls 
was  like  a  wet  sponge.  The  travellers  rould 
hardly  endure  the  odour  of  the  brasiers  over 
which  they  shivered.  Chopin  began  to  cough. 
A  doctor  was  called  in,  and  prescribed,  but  "only 
detestable  drugs  could  be  procured."  The  word 
was  passed  round  that  the  sufferer  was  in  con- 
sumption, and  the  Majorcans,  unwittingly  antici- 
pating modern  science,  dreaded  the  contagion  as 
they  dreaded  that  of  the  cholera  or  the  plague, 
though  also  declaring,  inconsistently  enough,  that 
it  was  a  curse  of  God,  a  punishment  of  evil  deeds, 
and  therefore  a  presumptive  proof  of  impiety. 
The  landlord  begged  politely,  but  peremptorily, 
that  his  tenants  would  be  so  good  as  to  evacuate 
the  premises  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

252 


The  Carthusian  Monastery 

They  did  so,  having  indeed  no  choice,  though 
not  knowing  where  next  to  lay  their  heads ;  and 
fortune  favoured  them.  Up  in  the  mountains 
was  a  Carthusian  monastery,  evacuated  by  the 
brethren  whom  a  recent  law  had  dispersed ;  and 
the  cells  could  be  hired  by  the  laity  as  apartments. 
It  happened  that  a  certain  political  refugee  who 
was  living  there  was  willing  not  only  to  sub-let 
his  apartment,  but  also  to  sell  his  furniture  for 
£40.  The  bargain  was  struck,  and  the  party 
climbed  the  hill,  and  settled  down  in  their  new 
residence  in  the  midst  of  pine  forests,  overlooking 
the  tree-clad  plain  and  the  Mediterranean.  "In 
the  month  of  December,"  says  George  Sand, 
"and  in  spite  of  the  recent  rains,  the  torrent  was 
only  a  charming  brook  babbling  among  the  grass 
and  flowers.  The  mountain  smiled  on  us,  and 
the  valley  opened  at  our  feet  like  a  valley  in 
Spring."  And  Chopin  was  happy,  and  wrote 
gaily  of  his  adventures  among  the  doctors  at 
Palma. 

"  All  the  three  doctors  in  the  island  came  to 
my  bedside  to  consult.  One  of  them  said  that  I 
should  die  eventually,  another  that  I  was  then 
dying,  and  the  third  that  I  was  already  dead  ;  and 
yet,  in  spite  of  them,  L  continue  to  live  just  as  I 
lived  before  they  were  called  in." 

And  then  he  describes  his  new  retreat,  and  his 
life  therein. 

253 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  Lost  between  the  rocks  and  the  sea,  in  an 
immense  deserted  convent  of  the  Carthusians, 
confined  in  a  cell,  the  one  door  of  which  is  rather 
larger  than  the  gates  of  Paris,  you  may  picture 
your  Fr^ddric,  with  his  hair  all  out  of  curl,  de- 
prived of  his  white  gloves,  and  as  pale  as  ever. 
My  cell  is  about  as  large  as  a  coffin,  a  vault  thick 
with  dust  serving  as  a  lid.  The  windows  are 
small,  and  underneath  these  windows  grow 
orange  trees,  palms,  and  cypresses.  Opposite  to 
them,  underneath  a  rose  window  in  the  Arabian 
style,  is  my  bed.  Close  to  the  bed  is  a  small 
table  ;  and  on  this  table — a  great  luxury — stand 
a  metal  candlestick,  holding  a  miserable  candle, 
the  works  of  Bach,  and  my  own  compositions  in 
manuscript.  That  is  the  full  list  of  my  belong- 
ings. And  what  a  silence !  One  may  shout  at 
the  top  of  one's  voice,  and  no  one  will  hear. 
Truly  Nature  is  beautiful,  though  relations  with 
the  inhabitants  of  these  solitudes  are  best 
avoided." 

Evidently  it  was  not  Chopin  who  found  the 
flight  into  the  wilderness  disappointing.  He 
lived,  not  in  a  passionate  ecstasy,  but  in  a  calm 
contentment,  enjoying  the  illusion  of  the  haven 
of  rest,  admired,  nursed,  and  cosseted.  He 
accepted  the  attention,  apparently,  as  a  matter  of 
course — the  proper  privilege  of  genius  in  physical 
distress.  It  would  not  even  seem  that  he  ad- 
mitted the  right  of  his  mistress  to  a  separate 

254 


A  Busy  Life 

artistic  life.  She  was  welcome,  of  course,  to 
"make  copy"  for  Buloz  :  Buloz  paid  her  for 
doing  so,  and  the  money  was  required.  But  the 
task  was  mechanical,  commanding  no  more  re- 
spect than  is  due  to  all  honest  toil.  The  author 
was  no  torch-bearer  handing  on  the  sacred 
flame.  That  was  her  patient's  function ;  hers 
was  merely  to  keep  the  flame  alive  in  him,  stand- 
ing between  him  and  the  rude  buffetings  of  the 
world.  So  long  as  she  thus  protected  him,  he 
would  not  complain.  He  had  all  the  society  he 
needed,  and,  for  the  rest,  his  art  sufficed.  His 
position,  in  short,  was  pretty  much  what  hers 
had  been  when  she  and  Pagello  had  kept  house 
together  on  the  lagoons  of  Venice. 

But  she,  on  her  part,  was  overworked,  and  was 
anxious  and  worried  about  many  things.  She 
had  to  sit  up  all  night  to  earn  her  living, — she  was 
just  then  writing  Spiridion, — and  in  the  daytime 
she  had  to  face  all  the  trouble  with  the  servants 
and  the  tradespeople,  as  well  as  to  give  lessons 
to  Maurice  and  Solange.  Meat,  other  than 
pork,  was  hardly  to  be  procured;  the  poultry 
were  often  diseased,  and  had  no  flesh  upon  their 
bones ;  cow's  milk  was  not  to  be  had,  and  the 
children  who  delivered  the  goat's  milk  drank  most 
of  it,  and  filled  up  the  measure  with  water.  The 
simplest  articles  of  furniture — any  piece  of  bed- 
room crockery  even,  other  than  a  jug  or  basin — 
had  to  be  imported  from  Barcelona.  The  de- 
livery of  such  goods — and  indeed  of  all  goods — 

255 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

was  irregular,  because  the  steamers  always 
awaited  the  convenience  of  the  pigs.  The 
Custom  House  charges  were  exorbitant — seven 
hundred  francs  being  demanded,  though  some- 
what less  was  ultimately  taken,  for  the  admission 
of  Chopin's  piano.  Moreover,  the  general  servant 
struck  work,  so  that  George  Sand  had  to  add 
cooking  and  sweeping  to  her  other  duties ;  while 
Chopin's  health  continued  to  be  far  from  satis- 
factory. Says  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  : — 

"  The  great  artist — poor  man — was  a  perfectly 
detestable  patient.  The  thing  which  I  had  feared 
—  though  I  had  not  feared  it  sufficiently- 
happened  ;  and  he  became  completely  de- 
moralised. Actual  suffering  he  bore  with 
courage,  but  he  could  not  overcome  the  uneasi- 
ness of  his  imagination.  Even  when  he  was 
well,  the  cloister  seemed  to  him  to  be  full  of 
terrors  and  phantoms.  He  did  not  say  so,  but 
I  could  divine  it.  When  I  returned  from  my 
nocturnal  explorations  of  the  ruins  with  my 
children,  I  used  to  find  him,  at  ten  o'clock  at 
night,  sitting  at  his  piano,  pallid,  with  haggard 
eyes,  and  hair  standing  on  end.  It  was  always 
a  minute  or  two  before  he  could  recognise  us. 

"It  was  there  that  he  composed  the  finest  of 
the  short  pieces  which  he  modestly  styled 
Preludes.  They  are  masterpieces.  Several  of 
them  bring  visions  of  departed  monks  before 
your  mind's  eye,  and  make  you  listen  to  funeral 

256 


The  Composition  of  the  Preludes 

songs ;  others  are  of  a  gentle  melancholy,  and 
these  came  to  him  at  the  hours  of  sunshine  and 
good  health,  when  he  heard  the  laughter  of  the 
children  underneath  his  window,  or  the  distant 
music  of  guitars,  or  the  songs  of  the  birds  in  the 
damp  foliage. 

"  Others  again  are  deeply  sorrowful,  and  rend 
your  heart  while  they  delight  your  ear.  There 
is  one  in  particular  which  came  to  him  on  an 
evening  of  lugubrious  rain.  He  had  been  feeling 
well  that  day,  and  Maurice  and  I  had  left  him  to 
go  to  Palma  to  make  some  necessary  purchases. 
The  rains  had  begun,  and  the  torrents  had  over- 
flowed their  banks.  We  had  travelled  three 
leagues  in  six  hours,  and  arrived  at  the  dead  of 
night,  shoeless,  deserted  by  our  driver,  having 
escaped  incredible  dangers.  We  made  haste, 
because  we  knew  that  our  invalid  would  be 
uneasy  about  us.  He  had  been  so,  in  fact,  but 
his  anxiety  had  been,  as  it  were,  transformed  into 
a  kind  of  tranquil  despair,  and  he  was  playing 
his  admirable  Prelude,  weeping  while  he  played. 
As  he  saw  us  enter,  he  rose,  uttering  a  loud  cry, 
and  then  said,  in  strange  tones,  and  an  absent- 
minded  manner,  "  Ah  yes,  I  knew  that  you  were 
dead." 

Perhaps  we  may  pass  the  criticism  that  this  is 

not  demoralisation,  but  the  artistic  temperament 

misunderstood,   as    George    Sand   was    strangely 

apt  to  misunderstand  it.     Her  own  eccentricities, 

R  257 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

though  often  extravagant,  were  always  common- 
place, deliberate,  and  predictable.  She  defied 
the  conventions  with  the  regularity  of  a  clock- 
work machine,  even  though  she  must  work 
fourteen  hours  a  day  in  order  to  be  able  to 
afford  to  do  so.  That  was  how  she  understood 
the  eccentricity  of  genius  :  the  unexpected,  the  in- 
calculable— the  wind  blowing  where  it  listed— 
always  puzzled  her.  That  was  one  of  the 
incompatibilities  that  separated  her  and  Musset ; 
and  that  is  why  she  thought  Chopin  "  demoralised  " 
when  inspiration  possessed  him. 

Certainly  there  is  no  trace  of  demoralisation  in 
the  scraps  of  his  own  letters  to  Fontana.  They 
are  very  sane  letters,  and  quite  cheerful.  The 
invalid,  effectively  shielded,  bears  up  brightly  in 
them.  It  was  George  Sand's  nerves,  not  his, 
that  were  affected — and  that  though  her  nerves 
were  robust. 

One  cannot  wonder.  For  months  she  had 
been  living  on  her  nerves,  and  burning  the  candle 
at  both  ends,  acting  at  one  and  the  same  time 
as  breadwinner,  children's  governess,  cook,  house- 
keeper, and  sick-nurse.  Everyone  in  her  em- 
ploy— everyone  with  whom  she  did  business- 
had  tried  to  rob  her ;  the  peasants  had  looked 
askance  at  her  because  she  did  not  go  to  church. 
To  crown  all,  her  patient  spat  blood,  and  she 
herself  endured  rheumatic  pains.  It  was  clearly 
necessary  for  them  to  go,  and  the  sooner  they 
went  the  better.  The  pigs  kept  them  waiting  for 

258 


Proposed  Visit  to  Nohant 

three  weeks,  but  at  last  they  were  at  liberty  to 
depart. 

Chopin,  George  Sand  says,  had  been  querulous  ; 
but  it  is  likely  enough  that  his  querulousness  was 
at  least  as  much  due  to  her  rheumatism  as  to  his 
cough.  Both  ailments  alike  were  relieved  when 
they  returned,  in  the  Spring,  to  the  South  of 
France  ;  and,  after  a  brief  excursion  to  Genoa, 
Chopin  proposed  to  his  mistress  that  he  should 
accompany  her  to  Nohant  and  stay  there. 

It  appears  that  she  hesitated — or  so,  at  least, 
the  untrustworthy  Autobiography  says.  She  had 
intended  a  honeymoon — and  nothing  more ;  she 
shrank  from  forming  fresh  ties  and  contracting 
new  obligations.  The  illusions  of  passion  did 
not  blind  her  eyes.  Her  feelings  towards  the 
artist  were  of  a  maternal  character  ;  but  that  did  not 
mean  that  she  would  sacrifice  the  interests  of  her 
children  to  him.  She  was,  moreover,  still  young 
enough  to  fear  lest  she  might  have  to  struggle 
against  "  passion  properly  so  called."  She 
dreaded  this  eventuality  to  which  "  artists  "  were 
particularly  liable — "  especially  when  they  had  a 
horror  of  transitory  distractions. "  Her  tender  feel- 
ing for  the  musician  might  end  by  assuming  this 
more  passionate  shape.  It  would  be  deplorable. 
And  yet 

And  yet,  of  course,  there  was  an  alternative 
possibility.  The  tender  feeling  might  prove  to 
be  not  a  danger  but  a  safeguard.  The  friendship 
might  stand  between  George  Sand  and  the 

259 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

passion  which  she  dreaded — especially  as  it  was 
a  friendship  to  which  that  much-abused  word 
''Platonic"  was  not  to  be  applied.  The  friends 
were  to  be  lovers  at  certain  hours,  and  the  lovers 
were  always  to  be  friends.  A  friendship  conceived 
in  that  spirit,  and  hedged  about  by  those  conditions, 
might  endure — might,  in  a  way,  calm  and  balance 
the  emotions.  It  was  an  experiment — but  one 
worth  trying.  Better  this  quiet  satisfaction 
than  the  pursuit  of  perpetual  adventure — better 
for  her  work,  better  for  her  family,  more  suited  to 
her  age. 

So  ran  the  course  of  the  sophistry  to  which  she 
yielded.  To  what  extent  Chopin  himself  pressed 
her,  believing  that  her  mission  was,  still  and 
always,  to  shield  genius  from  the  buffetings  of 
a  rough  world,  one  does  not  know.  What  one 
does  know  is  that,  in  the  end,  she  did  invite  him 
to  Nohant,  and  that  he  accepted  the  invitation, 
and  stayed  with  her,  there  and  in  Paris,  for  the 
next  eight  years. 


260 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

The  destruction  of  George  Sand's  letters  to  Chopin — The  recovery 
of  Chopin's  letters  to  his  family — "  Vie  rangee" — The  life  at 
Nohant  — The  verdict  of  Mile  de  Rozieres :  "Love  is  no 
longer  there." 

MINUTE  and  well-attested  particulars  of  George 
Sand's  life  with  Chopin  are  not  very  easy  to 
collect.  Habent  sua  fata  libelli.  The  documents 
which  might  have  been  expected  to  throw  full 
light  upon  the  episode  have  had  strange 
histories. 

In  the  voluminous  Correspondence  there  is 
hardly  a  word  upon  the  matter.  That  collection 
contains  only  a  single  short  letter  to  Chopin, 
written  at  Cambrai  in  August  1840,  and  consist- 
ing of  little  but  mockery  of  the  bourgeois  citizens 
of  that  provincial  town.  It  is  not  in  any  sense 
a  love  letter.  The  writer  does  not  even  "  thee- 
and-thou "  her  lover.  "Aimez  votre  vieille 
comme  elle  vous  aime," — "  Love  your  old  woman 
as  she  loves  you," — is  her  only  affectionate  J 
phrase. 

There  were  other  letters — presumably  of  a 
more  ardent  and  certainly  of  a  more  intimate 
character — but  these  have  perished.  Dumas  fils 

261 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

discovered  them  by  accident  in  a  police  station 
on  the  Polish  frontier,  where  he  was  detained 
through  some  trouble  about  his  passport.  The 
Chief  of  the  Police  gave  them  to  him  to  read,  to 
beguile  the  tedium  of  his  detention.  He  asked 
permission  to  remove  them  and  restore  them  to 
their  rightful  owner.  This  request  being  refused, 
he  borrowed  them  for  twenty-four  hours,  seized 
the  opportunity  to  steal  them,  conveyed  them  to 
France,  and  sent  them  to  George  Sand  with  his 
compliments.  She  burned  them,  and  said,  in  her 
letter  of  thanks  : — 

"  Assuredly  there  were  no  secrets  there ;  and 
it  is  a  matter  for  boasting  rather  than  blushing 
that  I  nursed  and  consoled  like  a  child  this  noble 
and  incurable  heart.  But  the  correspondence 
had  its  secret  side,  and  you  know  what  it  was. 
It  was  nothing  of  any  great  gravity,  but  I  should 
not  have  liked  to  see  it  commented  upon  and 
magnified.  .  .  .  These  family  revelations  might 
assume  importance  in  malevolent  eyes ;  and  it 
would  have  been  very  painful  to  me  to  open 
to  the  world  this  mysterious  volume  of  my 
private  life." 

So  the  parcel  was  thrown  into  the  fire  ;  and 
Dumas,  with  proper  delicacy,  destroyed  the  notes 
which  he  had  taken  of  its  contents. 

The  letters  in  the  custody  of  Chopin's  family 
were  long  believed  to  have  perished  too.  In  the 

262 


Chopin's  Letters 

course  of  the  Polish  insurrection  of  1863  a  bomb 
was  thrown  from  the  house  of  Chopin's  sister, 
Isabelle  Barcinska,  who  had  charge  of  them.  The 
Russian  soldiers  invaded  the  house  and  sacked  it. 
They  smashed  the  musician's  piano,  and  tore  up 
his  portrait  by  Ary  Scheffer  ;  and  it  was  supposed, 
as  all  the  early  biographers  tell  us,  that  his  papers 
had  disappeared  at  the  same  time.  The  legend 
had,  in  fact,  been  spread  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  the  curious  off  the  scent ;  the  Chopin 
family  had  kept  the  papers,  wishing  to  choose 
their  own  hour  for  the  publication.  They  were 
not  printed,  therefore,  until  1904  ;  and  even  then 
the  representatives  of  George  Sand's  family 
forbade  the  publication,  in  France,  of  any  of 
the  letters  written  either  by  her  or  by  her 
daughter.  These  letters  are  only  to  be  found 
in  the  Polish  edition,  published  in  Warsaw,  of 
M.  Karlowics'  Souvenirs  inddits  de  Chopin. 

The  story  of  the  liaison,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
written  anywhere,  is  written  in  those  letters ;  but 
the  collection  is  apparently  incomplete.  No  doubt 
the  Russian  soldiers,  though  they  did  not  destroy 
everything,  made  away  with  a  good  deal.  The 
letters  relating  to  several  entire  years  are  lacking ; 
and  even  when  all  the  sources  are  laid  under 
contribution,  a  full  consecutive  narrative  of  the 
episode  remains  impossible. 

So  far  as  externals  go,  the  incidents — at  least 
until  the  beginning  of  the  end — are  few,  and  of 
little  interest  or  importance.  Chopin  spent  his 

263 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

summers  with  George  Sand  at  Nohant,  and 
wintered  with  her  in  Paris.  At  Nohant  he 
composed,  generally  selling  his  compositions  at 
three  hundred  francs  a  piece ;  in  Paris  he 
gave  lessons,  at  twenty  francs  the  lesson.  The 
Paris  address  was,  at  first,  Rue  Tronchet,  and 
afterwards  Square  d'Orleans ;  and  we  have 
Chopin's  letter  of  directions  to  his  pupil  Fontana, 
who  had  undertaken  to  choose  an  apartment  for 
the  manage.  There  must  be  three  bedrooms, 
he  says.  Two  of  them,  he  insists,  must  com- 
municate ;  the  third  must  be  remote,  separated 
from  the  others  by  one  of  the  sitting-rooms. 
And  when  this  much  is  told,  there  remains 
very  little  to  tell  until  the  gathering  of  the  final 
storm. 

Perhaps  we  are  warranted  in  saying  that  the 
liaison,  in  its  earlier  years  at  all  events,  was 
happy  because  it  had  no  history.  The  theory 
is  borne  out  by  Chopin's  retrospective  exclamation, 
after  it  was  all  over  for  ever,  "  Huit  anndes  d'une 
vie  range*e  ! "  There  was  no  "  Sturm  und  Drang," 
as  in  the  Musset  period.  "  Sturm  und  Drang" 
had  played  havoc  with  George  Sand's  emotions, 
and  she  was  tired  of  them.  The  time  had  come, 
if  it  was  ever  to  come,  when  she  must  fulfil  her 
aspiration  to  "give  her  children  a  respectable 
mother."  She  did  not  quite  fulfil  it,  as  we  shall 
see.  But  she  came  nearer  to  fulfilling  it  than  she 
had  ever  come  before ;  and  Chopin  was  the  man 
to  help  her.  He  had  no  taste  for  the  extravagant 

264 


, 


"Vie  Rangte" 

excesses  of  Romanticism.  He  was  an  invalid, 
and  the  "vie  rangde"  was  a  necessity  for  his 
health.  He  had  had  his  honeymoon ;  and  only 
asked  to  be  allowed  to  settle  down,  and  to  be 
cosseted  when  he  was  ill. 

As  to  the  terms  on  which  he  and  George  Sand 
lived  together,  there  has  been  much  loud  dispute 
and  free  interchange  of  recriminations.  Chopin 
himself,  indeed,  being  a  gentleman,  contributed 
nothing  to  the  controversy ;  but  his  friends  and 
admirers  have  spoken  on  his  behalf.  His  life, 
they  aver,  though  monogamous,  did  not  lack 
pernicious  excitement ;  they  even  go  so  far  as 
to  say  that  his  life  was  shortened  by  his  mistress's 
physical  exactions.1  And  George  Sand,  on  her 
part,  published  her  defence  against  the  charge 
even  before  it  was  preferred.  Chopin,  she 
declared,  was  not  her  lover  but  her  patient — her 
"  malade  ordinaire."  She  boasted  of  her  self- 
abnegation  in  living  with  him  "  chastely,  like  a 
virgin."  It  may  well  be  that  both  stories  are 
true,  though  relating  to  different  periods  of  time  ; 
and  we  may  be  quite  sure  that,  if  George  Sand's 
story  had  contained  the  whole  truth,  the  ultimate 
estrangement  would  have  been  less  embittered. 
Nurses  and  their  patients  do  not  quarrel 

1  One  may  quote  here  the  words  of  Dumas  fils  :  "  Madame 
Sand  a  de  petites  mains  sans  os,  moelleuses,  ouateuses,  presque 
gelatineuses.  C'est  done  fatalement  une  curieuse  excessive, 
trompe*e,  decue  dans  ses  incessantes  recherches,  mais  non  une 
passionee.  C'est  en  vain  qu'elle  voudrait  1'etre,  elle  ne  peut  pas  ; 
sa  nature  physique  s'y  refuse." 

265 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

quite    as    we     shall     presently     see    these    two 
quarrelling. 

For  a  long  time,  however, — for  the  greater 
part  of  the  eight  years,  in  fact, — we  find  no  trace 
of  any  shadow  lying  across  the  calm  path  of 
their  happiness.  They  could  not  be  married, 
since  M.  Dudevant  still  lived — and  is  even  heard 
of  in  the  Letters  as  sending  his  son  Maurice  six 
pots  of  jam  as  a  New  Year's  present — but  they 
behaved  as  if  they  were.  The  time  was  still 
remote  when  the  concierge  of  the  Paris  apartment 
was  to  wait  upon  Chopin  with  complaints  of  the 
levity  of  George  Sand's  behaviour  with  her 
husband ;  and  he  comported  himself  very  much 
as  a  second  husband  and  a  stepfather,  regarding 
his  relations  as  serious  and  permanent,  entering 
merrily  into  the  amusements  of  the  children, 
and  using  his  influence  to  impose  a  limit  on 
the  Bohemian  rowdyism  which  had  too  long 
been  de  regie  at  Nohant.  Such  practical  jokes 
as  we  have  seen  played  on  Mallefille  were  by 
no  means  to  his  taste,  and  he  did  his  best  to 
put  them  down.  On  that  point  we  have  the 
evidence  of  his  pupil,  Mademoiselle  de  Rozieres, 
who  came  on  a  visit  to  the  Chateau. 

"  In  the  evening  her  brother  [Hippolyte 
Chatiron]  came  to  kick  up  a  row.  And  what 
a  row !  Enough  to  split  one's  head  open !  I 
really  thought  he  would  have  smashed  the  billiard- 
table.  He  flung  the  billiard  balls  about,  he 

266 


Rowdyism  at  Nohant 

shouted,  he  danced  round  the  room  in  hob-nailed 
boots.  People  only  put  up  with  him,  as  Madame 
Sand  does,  because  they  are  not  obliged  to  do 
so.  If  one  were  compelled  to  submit  to  it,  it 
would  be  a  torture.  He  is  far  from  clean,  and 
his  conversation  is  vulgar.  What  a  specimen  of 
a  Berry  yokel !  And  nearly  always  drunk ! 
I  am  told  that  the  house  was  full  of  persons  of 
that  sort  before  the  reign  of  Chopin  began." 

From  Chopin's  own  letters,  too,  we  gather  that 
there  were  other  matters  in  which  he  sided  with 
the  angels  and  with  decorum.  There  is  a  very 
ugly  story  belonging  to  this  period  about  a  certain 
Augustine,  described  sometimes  as  Solange's 
cousin,  and  sometimes  as  George  Sand's  adopted 
daughter,  who  came  to  live  at  Nohant.  It  is  alleged 
that  she  lived  there  in  the  character  of  Maurice's 
mistress,  with  his  mother's  sanction  and  approba- 
tion, and  that  Chopin  opposed  the  proceeding 
with  all  his  power,  though  unsuccessfully.  The 
story  is  only  told  in  full  in  a  letter  written  after 
the  rupture ;  and  it  has  been  denounced,  by 
M.  Rocheblave  and  others,  as  a  calumny  on  a 
good  woman's  reputation  ;  but  the  many  veiled 
allusions  to  it  in  earlier  letters  afford  a  strong 
presumption  of  its  truth.  It  fits  in,  at  any  rate, 
with  what  we  know  of  Chopin's  strained  relations 
with  Maurice  and  of  his  solicitude  for  Solange. 

Solange,  according  to  George  Sand,  was  the 
only  member  of  the  household  who  did  not 

267 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  spoil "  Chopin.  She  seems  even  to  have 
resented  his  affection  for  Solange  on  the  ground 
that  Solange  did  nothing  to  earn  it.  There  is  no 
doubt,  certainly,  that  Solange  was  a  naughty 
child,  and  troublesome  —  wilful,  petulant,  and 
idle.  She  had,  in  fact,  to  be  sent  to  a  boarding- 
school  because  she  could  not  be  managed  at 
home.  But  even  naughty  children  have  their  two 
soul-sides ;  and  nothing  is  more  clear  than  that 
Chopin  was  very  fond  of  Solange,  and  liked  her 
even  to  tease  him  and  interrupt  his  work.  He 
writes  of  her  much  as  a  father  might  of  his  own 
daughter,  telling  his  sister  that  he  has  been 
obliged  to  leave  a  letter  to  her  unfinished,  in 
order  to  play  duets  with  Solange,  or  to  take 
her  and  the  dog  for  a  drive,  or  to  help  her  cut 
down  a  tree  in  the  garden,  or  to  join  her  in 
feasting  off  chocolate  creams.  Evidently  he  was 
her  special  friend  and  confidant  in  the  house,  and 
he  liked  to  be  so  treated  and  regarded.  That 
part  of  the  picture  is  pretty  and  idyllic,  though 
the  friendship  for  the  daughter  contained  the 
germs  of  the  dissolution  of  the  attachment  for  the 
mother. 

For  the  rest,  artistic  reunions  and  house-parties 
took  the  place  of  the  boisterous  Bohemianism 
which  Chopin  had  always  detested,  and  which 
George  Sand  herself  was  probably  beginning  to 
outgrow.  We  get  a  trace  of  the  old  tone  now 
and  again — when  we  hear,  for  instance,  of  the 
drunken  irruptions  of  Hippolyte,  and  when  we 

268 


House-Parties  at  Nohant 

read  of  the  mistress  of  the  house  threatening  to 
throw  a  bucket  of  water  over  the  man-servant 
because  he  has  been  ringing  the  dinner-bell 
too  noisily  and  too  long — but  not  very  often. 
The  arts  were  not  only  cultivated,  but  enjoyed  ; 
for  most  of  the  visitors  were  masters  of  one  or 
other  of  the  arts. 

There  came,  for  instance,  JDelacroiXj  the 
painter — he  in  whose  studio  George  Sand  had 
once  sat  for  hours,  deploring  the  loss  of  Alfred  de 
Musset's  love,  and  who  now  loved  Chopin  as  a 
brother.  There  came  Liszt,  who  had  at  last 
escaped  from  his  servitude  to  Madame  d'Agoult, 
and  was,  for  the  moment,  heart-whole.  There 
came  Madame  Viardot,  the  singer,  beloved  of 
Turgueneff,  sister  of  La  Malibran,  and  of  that 
old  Manuel  Garcia  who  died,  a  centenarian,  only 
a  few  years  ago.  There  came  also  Chopin's 
sister  Louise,  most  devoted  of  sisters,  and,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  his  not  less  devoted  pupil, 
Mile  de  Rozieres.  And  harmony  —  outward 
harmony  at  all  events — prevailed.  Sometimes 
the  musicians  played ;  sometimes  the  novelist 
read  extracts  from  her  latest  pages.  The  vocalist 
sang  to  them  on  the  terrace ;  the  painter  set  up 
his  easel  in  the  park.  Maurice  Sand  installed 
a  theatre  and  organised  amateur  performances. 
Young  men  and  maidens  from  the  neighbourhood 
were  invited  to  come  and  take  part  in  them ; 
and  we  hear  of  Chopin  himself  not  only  directing 
the  orchestra,  but  "  making  up "  as  a  Jew,  a 

269 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

dowager,  a  sentimental  old  maid,  and  a  phleg- 
matic Englishman. 

On  the  surface  all  was  well.  For  a  season, 
perhaps,  all  was  well  beneath  the  surface  too.  It 
W  was  an  orderly  life,  in  a  sense,  and  yet  suffici- 
ently diversified.  But  though  the  shadows  took 
a  long  time  falling,  it  was  not  long  before  sharp 
eyes  foresaw  them.  One  may  surmise  that  there 
were  reasons  why  the  eyes  of  Mile  de  Rozieres 
were  sharper  than  another's.  She  writes  as  one 
who  loved  the  Master,  though  she  only  presumed 
to  express  her  love  in  worship.  She  may  have 
been  disposed,  therefore,  to  imagine  more  than 
she  actually  observed.  George  Sand  herself 
declared  that  her  ''lingering  looks  followed  him 
without  cessation,  as  if  she  would  envelop  him 
with  love."  But  her  testimony,  for  what  it  is 
worth,  may  be  recorded. 

"  Chopin,"  she  writes,  "no  longer  looks  like  a 
ghost.  He  tries  to  compose,  and  we  are  all  on 
the  best  of  terms  with  each  other.  And  yet 
what  I  told  you  the  other  day  is  true.  Love  is 
no  longer  there — on  one  side,  at  all  events. 
There  remain  only  tenderness  and  devotion, 
mingled,  according  to  the  day's  mood,  with 
regrets,  and  melancholy,  and  boredom,  due  to  all 
sorts  of  causes,  but  especially  to  the  clash  of  their 
characters,  the  divergence  of  their  tastes,  and 
the  differences  in  their  opinions.  I  can  only  say 
to  him,  '  Take  care,  you  will  never  alter  her 

270 


" 


The  Dupe  of  her  Goodness 


ideas  ;  '  and  other  things  of  the  kind.  She 
sometimes  speaks  to  him  very  sharply,  and  that 
cuts  him  to  the  heart.  He,  on  his  part,  has 
his  fancies,  his  vivacities,  his  antipathies,  his 
exigencies  ;  and  he  evidently  has  to  give  way 
because  it  is  she  who  commands,  and  he  has  not 
the  strength  to  resist." 

And  then  again  :  — 

"  She  is  good,  devoted,  disinterested  —  one 
might  conclude  that  she  is  the  dupe  of  her 
goodness.  Oh  yes  !  she  is  very  good  indeed. 
He  calls  her  his  angel  ;  but  the  angel  has  large 
wings  which  sometimes  knock  against  you  and 
hurt  you." 

That  is  the  pupil's  deposition.  We  must  next 
see  how  far  it  can  be  confirmed  from  Chopin's 
own  narrative,  and  from  other  independent 
sources. 


271 


CHAPTER   XXV 

Reasons  for  not  trusting  George  Sand's  account  of  the  liaison 
with  Chopin  —  Liszt's  summary  of  the  situation  —  Lucrezia 
Floriani — Was  "  Prince  Karol "  meant  for  Chopin  ? — Extracts 
from  Chopin's  and  George  Sand's  letters  to  Chopin's  sister. 

DECIDEDLY  it  is  not  to  George  Sand's  Histoire 
de  ma  Vie  that  we  must  go  for  the  veritable  truth 
concerning  her  relations  with  Chopin.  That  work 
is  a  vague  and  sentimental  retrospect.  Like 
Rousseau's  Confessions,  it  confuses  the  things  which 
happened  with  the  things  which,  in  the  view  of 
the  writer,  ought  to  have  happened.  The  con- 
temporary correspondence  confutes  it  in  a  good 
many  particulars ;  and  the  tone  is  that  of  a 
woman  who,  accused  of  having  behaved  badly, 
and  desiring  a  reputation  for  "sensibility,"  and 
even  for  sanctity,  makes  out  the  best  case  for 
herself  that  she  can,  and  finds  that  general  state- 
ments serve  her  purpose  better  than  particulars. 

It  was  her  habit,  in  her  personal  writings,  to 
make  self-justification  the  prelude  to  self-praise. 
Buloz  himself  drew  her  attention  to  the  fault, 
and  remonstrated,  when  she  brought  him  the 
manuscript  of  Elle  et  Lui — the  romance  in  which 
she  told  the  story  of  her  liaison  with  Musset. 
The  public,  he  said,  would  find  her  too  "severe," 

272 


<c 


Chastely  like  a  Virgin" 


It  would  be  more  becoming  if  she  were  silent 
about  her  pecuniary  relations  with  a  man  whom 
she  had  loved,  and  if  she  represented  Th^rese 
— that  is  to  say,  herself — as  "  somewhat  less 
perfect "  ;  and  he  added  :  "  A  sort  of  saint linessy 
if  I  may  so  put  it,  is  too  frequently  attributed  to 
Therese." 

No  one  who  has  compared  Elle  et  Lui  with 
the  true  story  on  which  it  is  founded,  and  has, 
in  particular,  followed  the  Pagello  interlude,  can 
question  the  justice  of  this  criticism ;  and  the 
criticism  is  also  applicable,  though  not  quite  in 
the  same  degree,  to  the  section  of  the  Autobio- 
graphy consecrated  to  Chopin.  The  great  artist 
is  handled  with  a  sort  of  sentimental  severity  as 
a  spoiled  child  who  received  many  benefits  but 
gave  little  in  return  for  them.  George  Sand, 
we  gather,  had  rescued  Chopin  from  Parisian 
dissipations  which  were  playing  havoc  with  his 
health,  and  had  had  but  a  poor  reward.  Not 
only  had  she,  for  his  sake,  accepted  the  obliga- 
tion of  living  "  chastely  like  a  virgin."  In 
addition  to  that  deprivation  she  complains  that 
he  "  was  not  exclusive  in  the  affections  which 
he  bestowed,  though  he  expected  exclusiveness 
in  the  affection  which  others  felt  for  him,"  and 
that  his  society  was  of  no  help  to  her  in  the 
hours  of  her  depression.  Moreover,  she  says, 
she  could  never  convert  him  to  her  own  pure 
religion,  whatever  that  may  have  been.  He 
could  not  emancipate  himself  from  the  orthodox 
s  273 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Catholic  dogmas,  and  lived  in  terror  not  only 
of  death  but  of  damnation,  so  that  she  had  to 
!  sit  up  with  him  night  after  night  and  chase  the 
phantom  of  his  ghostly  enemy  from  his  pillow. 
And  even  so,  she  gives  us  to  understand,  she 
would  have  borne  with  him,  if  he  had  not  taken 
the  part  of  Solange  in  a  bitter  family  quarrel. 
But  that  was  too  much.  It  came  to  a  quarrel,  and 
the  first  quarrel  was  the  last.  They  separated  ; 
and  when,  once  afterwards,  they  met  again,  he 
turned  his  back  on  her. 

That  is  the  summary  of  the  apologia ;  and 
the  statement  with  which  it  concludes — though 
it  has  been  embellished  and  become  a  legend- 
is,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  see,  a  complete 
and  deliberate  untruth.  The  rest  is,  no  doubt, 
in  a  way,  founded  upon  fact ;  but  there  is  very 
little  foundation,  and  a  vast  deal  of  superstruc- 
ture. Or  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say 
that  the  superstructure  is  quite  other  than  the 
foundation  should  have  suggested.  For,  though 
the  ethics  of  such  a  liaison  as  this — a  liaison  so 
closely  resembling  a  marriage — may  be  a  little 
difficult  to  fix,  it  is  clearly  impossible  to  regard 
George  Sand,  in  this  instance,  as  the  injured 
victim  of  "  sensibility." 

She  got  tired  of  Chopin — about  that  there  is 
absolutely  no  room  for  doubt.  It  was  her  habit 
— one  cannot  say  her  misfortune,  for  she  never 
recognised  it  or  wept  over  it — to  get  tired  of 
men ;  and  we  may  perhaps  find  the  clue  to  the 

274 


"  Maternal  Proclivities " 

situation  in  one  of  the  obiter  dicta  of  Liszt, 
reported  by  Janka  Wohl. 

"  Madame  Sand,"  says  Liszt,  "  caught  her 
butterfly  and  tamed  it  in  her  box  by  giving  it 
grass  and  flowers — this  was  the  love  period. 
Then  she  stuck  her  pin  into  it  when  it  struggled 

—this  was  the  congd,  and  it  always  came 
from  her.  Afterwards  she  vivisected  it,  stuffed 
it,  and  added  it  to  her  collection  of  heroes  for 
novels.  It  was  this  traffic  in  souls  which  had 
given  themselves  up  reservedly  to  her  which 
eventually  disgusted  me  with  her  friendship.  .  .  . 
For  all  that,  George  Sand  was  really  very  good 
company ;  and  if  one  forgot  she  was  a  woman 

—a  thing  I  rarely  care  to  do — and  if  one  closed 
one's  eyes  to  her  maternal  proclivities — a  funny 
term  coined  to  express  her  own  disenchantment 

—one  could  admire  her,  and  even  passionately 
attach  oneself  to  her." 

The  "  maternal  proclivities "  were  certainly 
very  much  in  evidence  in  George  Sand's  ulti- 
mate attitude  towards  Chopin  ;  and  it  is  hardly 
less  certain  that  she  added  him  to  her  collection 
of  heroes  for  novels.  She  denied,  indeed,  with 
sentimental  vehemence,  that  Prince  Karol  in 
Lucrezia  Floriani  was  meant  for  him,  and  she 
was  able  to  indicate  points  of  difference  between 
his  and  Prince  Karol's  characters.  But  that 
proves  nothing  in  face  of  the  fact  that  Prince 

275 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Karol  was  identified  as  Chopin,1  not  only  by 
his  own  friends,  but  also  by  the  members  of 
her  own  family,  by  whom,  in  fact,  Chopin's 
attention  was  drawn  to  the  resemblance.  "  My 
dear  M.  Chopin,"  wrote  Solange,  "have  you 
read  Lucrezia  Florianit  My  mother  has  put  you 
in  it." 

And  the  thesis  of  Lucrezia  Floriani  is  that 
it  is  a  nuisance  for  a  woman  of  genius  to  be  at 
the  beck  and  call  of  an  invalid.  The  hint  was 
plain  enough,  though  Chopin  was  too  little  sus- 
picious to  see  it  except  under  compulsion.  One 
can  hardly  doubt  that,  having  seen  it,  he  would 
have  taken  it  —  that  it  would  have  been  re- 
peated, more  and  more  broadly,  until  he  did 
take  it — if  other  circumstances  had  not  precipi- 
tated the  rupture.  We  shall  come  to  that  very 
soon  ;  but  we  may  pause  first  to  turn  over  the 
newly  recovered  collection  of  his  letters,  and 
examine  their  record  of  the  happy  years  before 
the  catastrophic  climax  had  begun  to  loom  in  view. 

Tranquillity  is  the  note  of  them — the  tran- 
quillity of  an  invalid  who  did  not  know  how  ill 
he  was,  but  felt  himself  too  weak  for  passion, 
for  infidelity,  or  for  jealousy.  We  seem  to 
be  centuries  removed  from  the  tpanchements  of 
the  Romantic  Movement ;  the  impression  is 
rather  of  an  old  friend  of  the  family  making 
a  long  sojourn  in  a  country  house.  All  verbal 
homage  is  paid  to  the  conventions.  The 

1  Turgueneff  so  identified  him  in  a  letter  to  Madame  Viardot. 

276 


"My  Hostess" 

assumption  is  that  the  writer's  sister  and  mother 
know  nothing  of  the  intimacy  of  his  relations 
with  his  hostess.  He  even  speaks  of  her  as 
"  my  hostess,"  and  as  "  the  mistress  of  the 
house" — "la  chatelaine!'  For  instance:  "  My 
hostess  embraces  you.  You  know  how  fond 
she  is  of  you.  She  has  written  you  a  letter." 
One  cannot  extract  any  connected  story  from 
the  documents ;  and  they  have  no  claim  to  a 
place  among  the  letters  which  are  also  literature  ; 
but  a  few  passages  picked  almost  at  random 
will  have  their  use  as  a  mirror  of  the  man  and 
of  his  life.  The  first  passage  is  from  a  letter 
to  his  sister,  written  shortly  after  her  visit  to 
Nohant. 

"  I  am  sending  you  the  little  songs  you  heard 
one  evening.  Solange,  who  sends  you  a  kiss 
(she  has  reminded  me  of  it  twice),  has  written 
the  words  out  for  you  from  memory ;  and  I 
have  written  the  music.  I  hope  you  arrived 
safely,  and  have  had  good  news  from  Vienna 
and  Cracow.  .  .  . 

"  Last  night  I  saw  you  all  in  a  dream  ;  and  I 
hope  this  journey  has  done  no  harm  to  your 
health.  Write  me  a  line  to  say.  For  my  own 
part,  I  have  been  idling  during  the  last  few  days. 
Maurice  is  not  yet  here,  but  will  return  to- 
morrow or  the  day  after.  Remember  what  I 
told  you  when  you  left  us — that  I  should  return 
alone  by  the  diligence,  and  that  the  post-chaise 

277 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

journey  was  only  undertaken  for  the  maintenance 
of  certain  convenances.  To-day  we  are  planning 
an  excursion  to  Ars.  My  hostess's  aunt  is  here 
with  her  ward,  occupying  your  room,  as  I  wrote 
to  you  when  you  were  at  Vienna." 

We  hear  presently  of  the  arrival  of  another 
visitor. 

"We  have  been  here  more  than  a  month. 
Madame  Viardot  came  with  us  and  stayed  for 
three  weeks.  We  are  all  very  well,  though  the 
fever  has  been  raging  in  the  country  all  through 
the  winter.  The  weather  is  now  fine  and  favour- 
able, but  when  we  arrived  there  were  terrible 
thunderstorms.  ...  I  was  not  made  for  country 
life,  but  still  I  enjoy  the  fresh  air.  I  do  not 
play  much,  for  my  piano  is  out  of  tune.  I  write 
still  less ;  that  is  why  yon  have  had  nothing  from 
me  for  so  long." 

Next  we  come  to  a  piece  of  gossip — a  story  of 
Victor  Hugo  not  contained  in  the  famous  bio- 
graphy written  by  " un  te'moin  de  sa  vie" 

"  M.  Billard,  an  historical  painter  of  no 
particular  account,  and  a  very  ugly  man,  had 
a  pretty  wife  whom  M.  Hugo  seduced. 
M.  Billard  caught  them  '  en  flagrant  de'lit,'  so  that 
Hugo  had  to  show  his  medal,  proving  that  he 
was  a  Peer  of  France,  to  the  Commissaire  of 
Police,  to  avoid  being  arrested.  M.  Billard 

278 


Victor  Hugo 

threatened  to  proceed  against  his  wife,  but  was 
satisfied   with   a   separation    by  mutual    consent. 
Hugo    has    disappeared    to    travel    for    several 
months.      Madame  Hugo,  most  magnanimously, 
has  taken  Madame  Billard  under  her  protection  ; 
and    Juliette,    the    actress    of    the    Porte    Saint 
Martin,    so   notorious    ten   years    ago,    who   has 
been  living  for  a  long  time  under  the  protection 
of  M.    Hugo — in  spite  of  his  wife,  his  children, 
and  his  poetry  on  the  domestic  affections — this 
Juliette,   I   say,  has  gone  away  with  him.     The 
evil  tongues  of  Paris  are  satisfied.     They  have 
something  to  talk  about ;  and  there  is  no  deny- 
ing   that    the    story   is    amusing — especially    as 
Hugo    now   wears    five    decorations,    and   never 
loses  an  opportunity  of  posing  as  superior  to  all 
human  weaknesses." 

A  note  on  an  afternoon's  excursion  : — 

"  I  have  just  returned  from  a  drive  with 
Solange,  who  shook  me  up  nicely  in  her 
carriage,  in  the  company  of  Jacques.  Jacques 
is  the  name  of  a  very  large  and  well-bred  dog, 
given  to  my  hostess  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old  Simon,  who,  this  year,  aged  very  much,  and 
had  one  of  his  paws  paralysed.  When  it  rains, 
he  jumps  into  the  carriage,  and  stretches  himself 
out  in  such  a  way  that  his  head  gets  drenched 
at  one  of  the  carriage  doors  and  his  tail  at  the 
other.  .  .  . 

279 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  My  hostess  is  at  this  moment  in  the  village 
with  the  dear  doctor,  her  neighbour.  They 
have  gone  to  see  a  patient  who,  in  spite  of  her 
fever,  insists  upon  taking  a  journey  of  several 
leagues  to  consult  a  quack.  There  is  no  dis- 
suading her." 

A  note  on  the  illnesses  that  invade  the 
family  : — 

"  To-day  everybody  in  the  house  has  a  cold 
in  the  head.  That  I  should  have  an  intolerable 
cough  is  not  astonishing  ;  but  my  hostess's  cold 
is  so  bad  and  she  has  such  a  sore  throat  with 
it  that  she  cannot  leave  her  room,  and  her 
patience  is  exhausted. 

"As  a  rule,  the  greater  one's  health  the  less 
one's  patience  where  physical  ailments  are  con- 
cerned ;  but  that  cannot  be  helped.  Argument 
is  of  no  avail.  .  .  .  To-day  is  a  melancholy 
Chrismas  Eve,  for  the  invalids  will  not  have 
the  doctor,  though  their  colds  are  awful,  and 
they  have  all  gone  to  bed. 

"  Everybody  abuses  the  climate  of  Paris,  and 
forgets  that  in  the  winter  the  climate  in  the 
country  is  worse.  Indeed,  winter  is  winter 
wherever  you  are,  and  these  two  months  are 
very  difficult  to  get  through.  I  often  wonder 
how  impatient  people  manage  to  live  under 
skies  still  more  inclement  than  ours.  Some- 
times I  feel  as  if  I  would  give  several  years  of 

280 


The   "  Injuncted  "  Correspondence 

my  life  for  an  hour  or  two  of  sunshine.  I  have 
survived  so  many  people  stronger  and  younger 
than  myself  that  I  feel  as  if  I  were  immortal. " 

One  need  quote  no  more.  The  letters  relate 
nothing  that  at  all  intimately  concerns  this 
narrative.  Save  for  the  very  occasional  spice  of 
scandal,  they  are  trivial  and  almost  childlike. 
One  would  say,  indeed,  that  they  are  rather 
childish  than  reserved — the  letters  of  a  man  of 
genius  to  whom  it  is  not  given  to  express 
himself  in  print,  and  who  very  imperfectly 
realises  anything  in  the  world  about  him  which 
is  not  connected  with  his  art,  and  realises  least 
of  all  that  love  is  a  kind  of  war,  and  that  if  "  the 
beginnings  are  always  happy,"  the  end  is  apt 
to  be  disaster.  Chopin  appears  in  them  as  one 
who  looks  neither  before  nor  after,  assumes  that 
things  will  always  be  as  they  have  always  been, 
treats  incidents  as  incidental,  expects  no  great 
events  to  spring  from  little  causes,  and  is  un- 
moved by  the  thought  of  the  water  always 
flowing  under  the  bridge :  a  man,  in  fine,  who 
did  not  cry  out  before  he  was  hurt  because  he 
never  dreamed  that  he  was  going  to  be  hurt. 

George  Sand  herself,  during  the  period  which 
the  letters  cover,  was  in  correspondence  with 
Chopin's  sister,  Louise.  This  is  the  "  injuncted  " 
correspondence,  only  procurable  in  Poland ;  and 
when  one  has  read  it  and  ruminated  over  it,  one 
still  fails  to  conjecture  any  sound  reason,  even 

281 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

from  the  Sand  point  of  view,  for  its  exclusion 
from  France.  It  is  only  moderately  intimate. 
It  reveals  no  secrets,  but  is  principally  concerned 
with  the  weather  and  the  state  of  Chopin's  health. 
Once  more  the  reader  feels  himself  miles  removed 
from  the  explosive  passion  of  the  earlier  affairs. 
There  are  no  confidences,  no  jealousies,  none  of 
the  old  aspirations  after  a  moral  pivot,  none  of 
the  old  lamentations  over  the  "  unarrangeable- 
ness"  of  life.  It  is  a  "vie  rangde"  a  "vie  de 
manage"  with  a  matron  rather  than  a  mistress  at 
the  head  of  it,  that  is  depicted.  For  instance,  in 
the  letter  inviting  Louise  to  Nohant : — 

"  You  will  find  my  dear  child  rather  poorly  and 
much  changed  since  you  saw  him  last ;  but  do 
not  be  too  much  alarmed  about  his  health.  It 
has  not  in  a  general  way  deteriorated  in  the  six 
years  during  which  I  have  seen  him  every  day. 
He  has  a  bad  fit  of  coughing  every  morning,  and 
two  or  three  crises,  lasting  two  or  three  days  only, 
every  winter,  with  attacks  of  neuralgic  pains  from 
time  to  time.  That  is  his  ordinary  state.  For 
the  rest,  his  lungs  are  sound,  and  his  delicate  con- 
stitution is  not  seriously  impaired.  I  hope  he  will 
grow  stronger  in  time  ;  but  I  am  sure  that,  if  his 
habits  are  regular  and  he  takes  care  of  himself,  he 
will  live  as  long  as  other  people.  .  .  . 

"  For  a  long  time  he  has  only  thought  of  the 
happiness  of  those  whom  he  loves  instead  of  his 
own  happiness,  which  he  can  no  longer  share  with 

282 


Letters  to  Chopin's  Sister 

them.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  done  everything 
in  my  power  to  mitigate  the  pain  of  this  cruel 
absence,  and  though  I  have  not  succeeded  in 
making  him  forget  it,  I  have  at  least  the  con- 
solation of  having  bestowed  upon  him  and  in- 
spired in  him  as  much  affection  as  was  possible 
in  the  circumstances.  So  come  with  him  to  see 
me,  and  believe  that  I  love  you  in  advance  as  a 
sister.  I  only  beg  you  to  make  the  little  Chopin, 
as  we  call  the  great  Chopin,  your  brother,  take  a 
good  rest  before  he  starts  upon  his  journey." 

And  then,  in  letters  written  at  various  dates 
subsequent  to  the  visit : — 

"  Fre'de'ric  is  fairly  well,  although  this  March  is 
very  cold  and  very  gloomy  in  comparison  with 
the  month  of  February,  which  was  one  of  Nature's 
mistakes,  so  bright  and  cold  was  it.  Now  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  hailstorms,  clouds,  and  all  the 
caprices  of  an  uncertain  and  changeable  climate. 
And  yet  your  dear  Fritz  is  not  ill,  and  is  always 
working,  too  hard  in  my  opinion,  at  his  lessons. 
To  be  without  occupation  does  not  suit  his  active 
and  nervous  disposition.  Soon  I  shall  take  him 
away  from  the  pupils  who  idolise  him,  and  carry 
him  off  to  Nohant,  where  he  must  eat  heavily,  and 
sleep  long,  and  compose  a  little." 

"  The  weather  is  superb  ;  the  country  is  mag- 
nificent ;  and  our  dear  child,  I  hope,  is  going  to 

283 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

be  as  well  as  mine  are,  under  the  influence  of  the 
peaceable  life  and  the  beautiful  sunshine." 

"  Your  dear  little  brother  has  been  very  much 
exhausted  by  the  severe  winter  which  lasted  so 
long  here ;  but  since  the  fine  weather  set  in,  he 
has  quite  recovered  his  health  and  youthfulness. 
A  fortnight's  warm  weather  does  him  more  good 
than  all  the  medicines  in  the  world.  His  health 
is  very  dependent  on  the  state  of  the  atmosphere, 
so  that  I  seriously  think — supposing  I  can  earn 
enough  money  this  year  to  travel  with  my  family 
— of  taking  him  to  the  South  for  the  three  worst 
months  of  the  next  winter.  If  one  could  only 
shelter  him  from  the  cold  for  a  whole  year,  he 
would  then,  with  the  summer  to  follow,  have  a 
clear  eighteen  months  to  get  rid  of  his  cough.  I 
shall  have  to  bully  him  to  make  him  agree  to  do 
it ;  for  he  loves  Paris,  whatever  he  may  say.  Not 
to  deprive  him  of  his  Paris  for  too  long,  or  take 
him  away  too  long  from  his  pupils,  one  might  let 
him  pass  September,  October,  and  November 
here,  and  return  in  March,  and  give  him  until 
the  end  of  May  before  obliging  him  to  return  to 
Nohant.  Those  are  my  plans  for  this  year  and 
next.  Do  you  approve  of  them  ?  " 

And  so  forth.  For  here  again  a  few  typical 
excerpts  are  sufficient,  seeing  that  the  interest  of 
the  letters  lies  in  their  tone,  and  not  in  any  state- 
ments of  fact  which  they  contain.  It  is  the 

284 


Grievances  and  Disagreements 

maternal  tone,  which  Liszt  considered  so  sig- 
nificant, though  he  could  only  attach  his  special 
significance  to  it  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events. 
There  is  no  hint  of  any  discord,  or  of  any  desire 
to  be  quit  of  a  burden,  though,  at  the  date  of  the 
last  of  the  letters,  the  end  must  have  been  almost 
in  sight.  One  would  say,  if  one  knew  nothing 
more  of  the  story,  that  the  burden  was  carried  as 
a  privilege,  and  that  the  "vie  rangde"  with  its 
trivial  round  of  duties  and  responsibilities,  was  all 
that  George  Sand  desired. 

Only,  as  it  happens,  one  knows — and  cannot 
help  knowing  —  better.  The  portrait  of  Prince 
Karol  is  one  piece  of  evidence,  and  the  letters 
written  in  the  period  of  recriminations  furnish 
others.  All  sorts  of  little  grievances  and  disagree- 
ments had  paved  the  way  for  the  final  quarrel,  of 
which  the  immediate  occasion  was  the  marriage 
of  Solange  Sand  to  Cldsinger. 


285 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

Solange  Sand  at  school  —  Her  religious  instruction  —  She  jilts 
Fernand  de  Prdaulx  and  marries  Clesinger— Quarrel  between 
Solange  and  her  mother  —  Quarrels  between  Chopin  and 
George  Sand  because  he  takes  the  part  of  Solange — Separa- 
tion of  Chopin  and  George  Sand — Chopin's  correspondence 
with  Solange — The  references  to  the  rupture  in  his  letters  to 
his  sister. 

SOLANGE,  as  we  have  seen,  was  naughty  and 
troublesome,  and  would  not  do  as  she  was  told. 
For  that  reason,  as  we  have  also  seen,  she  was 
sent  to  a  boarding-school,  kept  by  a  Madame 
Bascans,  to  whose  husband  George  Sand  wrote, 
requesting  that  her  daughter  should  be  given 
a  very  special  kind  of  religious  instruction. 

"  Religious  ceremonies,  I  think,  have  a  bad 
effect  upon  her.  I  am  afraid  they  may  destroy 
for  ever  that  germ  of  enthusiasm  which  I  have 
tried  to  implant  in  her  for  the  mission  and  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  so  strangely  expounded  in  the 
Churches.  I  beg  you,  therefore,  to  keep  her 
at  home  during  the  hours  of  service.  But  if  you 
should  be  willing,  as  I  requested  you  last  year,  to 
explain  to  her  the  philosophy  of  Christ,  to  make 
her  feel  the  poetical  beauty  of  the  life  and  death 
of  the  Divine  Man,  to  present  the  Gospel  to  her 

286 


Betrothal  of  Solange 

as  the  doctrine  of  equality,  and  to  talk  with  her 
about  the  Gospels,  so  scandalously  mutilated 
in  the  Catholic  tradition,  and  so  admirably 
rehabilitated  in  the  Book  of  Humanity  of 
Pierre  Leroux,  that  is  the  sort  of  religious 
instruction  that  I  should  like  her  to  have  in  Holy 
Week  and  at  all  times.  Only  this  teaching 
must  be  imparted  to  her  by  yourself,  and  not  by 
any  of  the  'sacred  comedians,'  as  the  Hussites 
call  them." 

No  doubt  the  programme  was  carried  out ;  but 
it  did  not  succeed  in  making  Solange  docile  and 
amenable.  She  wanted  to  have  her  own  way,  to 
choose  her  own  husband — to  make  up  her  own 
mind  and  to  change  it  as  she  pleased,  with  as 
little  ceremony  as  her  mother.  Hence  the 
troubles  which  date  from  September  1846 — two 
years  after  her  return  to  Nohant. 

At  that  date  a  suitor  presented  himself — one 
Fernand  de  Preaulx,  a  country  gentleman  of 
Berry,  "  handsome  and  good,"  George  Sand 
testifies,  and  four-and-twenty  years  of  age.  All 
seemed  to  be  going  well.  "  My  daughter," 
George  Sand  wrote  to  her  friend  Poncy,1  "is 
passionately  in  love  with  her  tall  and  handsome 
cavalier.  He  is  her  slave,  and  only  lives  to 
please  her."  That  was  on  January  7,  1847. 
But  almost  immediately  afterwards  there  followed 

1  A  Socialist  stone-mason  of  Toulon  with  whom  George  Sand 
was  for  some  time  in  correspondence. 

287 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

another  letter  to  the  same  correspondent:  "  I  am 
in  trouble,  in  great  trouble.  Solange  has  refused 
to  marry  the  man  she  loved.  She  has  been 
inconsistent  and  a  little  hard  about  it."  And 
that  brings  us  to  Cl^singer. 

Cl^singer  had  been  a  non-commissioned  officer 
in  the  Cuirassiers,  and  was  now  a  sculptor.  He 
had  introduced  himself  to  George  Sand  as 
an  aspiring  artist  seeking  the  patronage  and 
encouragement  of  an  artist  of  established  reputa- 
tion. She  who,  at  that  date,  regarded  artists 
as  the  true  priests  of  humanity,  had  answered 
his  letter;  early  in  1847  she  made  his  per- 
sonal acquaintance,  and  called  upon  him  in 
his  studio,  and  it  was  arranged  that  he  should 
make  her  bust  and  then  that  of  Solange.  He 
fell  in  love  with  Solange,  and  Solange  with  him, 
with  the  result  that  she  gave  M.  Fernand  de 
Pr^aulx  his  dismissal.  As  Chopin  writes : 
"  They  all  came  to  Paris  on  purpose  to  sign 
the  marriage  contract,  and  she  refused  her 
signature." 

That,  save  for  the  scandal,  did  not  matter  very 
much.  "  Better  before  marriage  than  afterwards," 
as  Chopin  wrote.  But  Cldsinger  was  not,  in 
George  Sand's  view,  a  satisfactory  suitor.  She 
made  inquiries  about  him,  and  the  information 
which  she  obtained  was,  she  says,  "  bad  enough 
to  hang  him."  Solange,  however,  was  too 
infatuated  to  be  open  to  argument,  and  the 
ex-non-commissioned  officer  of  Cuirassiers  was 

288 


Marriage  of  Solange 

ready  for  the  role  of  Young  Lochinvar.  The 
lovers  eloped,  and  their  marriage  was  the  only 
means  of  avoiding  the  gravest  sort  of  scandal 
—a  scandal  which  could  only  be  hushed  up  on 
condition  that  the  marriage  was  hurried  on. 
George  Sand  accepted  the  inevitable,  apparently 
with  a  good  grace,  in  spite  of  her  knowledge  that 
her  son-in-law  was  heavily  in  debt ;  and  wrote 
on  the  subject  to  Poncy  as  follows  : — 

"In  the  course  of  six  weeks  she  [Solange] 
has  broken  off  a  love  affair  which  hardly  affected 
her  at  all  and  entered  upon  another  in  which 
she  is  wrapped  up  heart  and  soul.  She  was  on 
the  point  of  marrying  her  former  lover.  She 
has  given  him  his  congk,  and  is  marrying  the 
other  man  instead.  It  is  odd.  Above  all,  it  is 
rash.  But,  after  all,  she  is  within  her  rights,  and 
destiny  smiles  upon  her." 

And  then  again  : — 

"  My  daughter  Solange  was  married  yesterday 
to  a  gallant  man  and  a  great  artist,  Jean- 
Baptiste  Cldsinger.  She  is  happy.  So  are 
we  all." 

That  was  the  situation  when  Cl^singer  and 
Solange  set  out  for  their  honeymoon  towards 
the  end  of  May  1847.  When  they  returned 
from  it,  they  found  that,  though  nothing  had 
happened,  things  nevertheless  had  changed. 
T  289 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

George  Sand,  after  turning  the  matter  over  in 
her  mind,  had  come  to  the  conclusion  not  only 
that  she  did  not  like  Cldsinger,  but  that  she 
could  not  endure  him — that  he  was,  in  fact,  a 
noisy  and  boisterous  person,  whose  presence  at 
Nohant,  or  in  the  neighbourhood,  would  be  an 
intolerable  nuisance  to  her.  She  told  Solange  as 
much  when  she  came  to  see  her ;  and  Solange 
complained  to  Chopin  : 

"  I  found  her  very  much  changed,  cold  as 
ice,  and  even  hard.  She  began  by  saying 
that  if  I  quarrelled  with  my  husband  I  might 
return  to  Nohant,  but  that,  as  for  him,  she 
refused  to  keep  up  his  acquaintance." 

On  that  plea  Chopin,  on  behalf  of  Solange, 
joined  issue. 

His  feelings  had  already  been  hurt  by  neglect. 
While  the  marriage  was  in  contemplation,  George 
Sand  had  treated  him  as  a  stranger,  neither 
asking  his  advice  nor  even  confiding  in  him. 
She  gives  her  reasons  in  a  letter  to  their  common 
friend,  Gryzmala.  Chopin's  advice,  she  says,  is 
not  worth  having. 

"He  has  never  been  able  to  see  things  as  they 
are,  or  to  understand  anything  about  human 
nature.  His  soul  is  all  poetry  and  music,  and  he 
cannot  endure  anybody  who  is  different  from  him- 
self. Besides,  the  exercise  of  his  influence  in  my 
family  affairs  would  mean  the  loss  of  all  dignity 

290 


An  Ultimatum 

on  my  part  and  of  all  affection  between  my 
children  and  myself.  Talk  to  him,  and  try  to 
make  him  understand,  in  a  general  way,  that  he 
had  better  abstain  from  meddling." 

She  goes  on  to  say  that  her  love  for  Chopin 
has  been  <c  absolutely  chaste  and  maternal,"  and 
that  she  has  suffered  "  martyrdom,"  et  cetera ;  but 
that,  for  the  moment,  is  irrelevant.  She  also 
wrote  to  Chopin  himself,  who  was  at  the  time  in 
Paris,  conveying  an  ultimatum.  She  would  only 
have  him  at  Nohant  on  condition  that  he  did  not 
talk  about  Solange  ;  and  he  rejected  the  condition. 
It  seemed  better.  "It  was  so  long,"  he  wrote, 
"since  we  had  met  without  a  battle  and  a  scene," 
—which  disposes  of  the  allegation  in  the 
Autobiography  that  their  first  quarrel  was  also 
their  last. 

What  follows  belongs,  perhaps,  more  properly 
to  the  life  of  Solange  than  to  that  of  Chopin  ;  but 
it  is  impossible  to  appreciate  the  situation  without 
quoting  from  the  letters  written  by  Madame 
Cl^singer  to  Chopin  at  this  date.  The  first  of 
them  is  written  from  La  Chatre,  immediately 
after  the  return  from  the  honeymoon. 

"  I  am  ill.  The  journey  in  the  Blois  diligence 
will  tire  me  terribly.  Will  you  lend  me  your  carriage 
to  take  me  back  to  Paris  ?  Answer  immediately, 
please.  I  am  awaiting  your  reply  at  La  Chatre, 
where  I  am  in  great  distress.  I  have  left  Nohant 

291 


George  Sand  and   Her  Lovers 

for  ever,  after  the  most  frightful  scenes  with  my 
mother.  Please  wait  for  me  before  you  leave 
Paris.  I  am  very  anxious  to  see  you  at  once. 
They  have  absolutely  refused  to  let  me  have  your 
carriage,  so,  if  you  are  willing  that  I  should  use 
it,  write  me  a  line  giving  permission,  and  I  will 
send  to  Nohant  for  it." 

Chopin  replied,  placing  his  carnage  at  her  dis- 
position, and  wrote  to  George  Sand  saying  that 
he  had  done  so.  There  quickly  followed  another 
letter  complaining  of  further  outrage. 

"All  the  furniture  has  been  taken  out  of  my 
room.  They  have  removed  the  curtains,  the  bed, 
and  everything,  and  divided  the  room  into  two 
parts.  One  half  of  it  is  now  an  auditorium,  and 
the  other  half  is  a  stage.  They  play  comedies 
there.  Ldontine,  Henry,  and  Duvernet  were 
present  at  a  performance.  The  dressing-room  is 
their  theatrical  wardrobe,  and  the  boudoir  is  the 
actors'  green-room.  Who  would  have  believed 
it  ?  A  mother  who  sets  up  a  theatre  in  the  bridal 
chamber  of  her  darling  daughter  \  " 

Chopin's  answer  is  that  of  a  peacemaker.  He 
affects  to  believe  that  there  has  been  "a  first  step 
towards  reconciliation,"  and  predicts  that  "  time 
will  do  the  rest."  But  the  confidences  which  he 
receives  continue  to  be  in  the  same  tone. 

"  I   rather   think  all  our   belongings   in    Paris 
292 


Letters  from  Solange 

have  been  seized  for  debt.  .  .  .  One  gets  used  to 
everything,  even  to  anxiety.  Here  am  I,  with 
my  extravagant  tastes,  who  used  to  think  a  coach 
with  six  horses  hardly  good  enough  to  carry  me 
—I  who  used  to  live  in  an  imaginary  world,  in 
dreams  of  poetry,  amid  clouds  and  flowers — here 
am  I,  living  more  prosaically  than  the  most  hum- 
drum. I  am  sure  I  shall  become  a  miser — I 
who  once  would  have  thrown  millions  out  of  the 
window.  I  have  aged  more  in  a  week  than  in 
the  previous  eighteen  years. 

"  On  the  one  hand  I  have  these  anxieties  about 
money,  and  on  the  other  a  mother  who  brusquely 
abandons  me  at  a  time  when  I  know  nothing 
whatever  about  life. 

"  I  know  now  what  is  the  value  of  a  friend, 
especially  when  he  is  the  only  one  I  have.  My 
mother,  the  first  and  best  friend  that  Providence 
gave  me,  leaves  me  to  the  care  of  the  saints  of 
Paradise,  without  even  knowing  whether  any  one 
of  them  is  willing  to  afford  me  protection." 

And  still  Chopin  tried  to  act  as  peacemaker ; 
and  did  so  in  circumstances  which  once  more 
prove  the  inexactitude  of  the  Histoire  de  ma 
Vie. 

All  the  world  knows  George  Sand's  story, 
already  referred  to,  of  her  one  meeting  with  him 
after  the  breach — how  she  cooed  "  FrddeVic "  at 
him,  and  how  he  turned  his  back  on  her,  whether 
because  he  bore  malice,  or  because  he  could  not 

293 


George  Sand  and   Her  Lovers 

trust  himself  to  speak.  But  he  did  speak,  as  we 
know  from  his  letter  written,  on  the  following 
morning,  to  Solange,  and  first  printed  by 
M.  Rocheblave  in  his  George  Sand  et  sa  fille. 
He  says  : — 

"  Yesterday  I  called  on  Madame  Marliani,  and 
as  I  was  leaving  I  met  your  mother,  who  was 
entering  with  Lambert,  at  the  door.  I  said  good- 
morning  to  your  mother,  and  my  next  words  were 
to  ask  her  if  it  was  long  since  she  had  heard  from 
you.  'A  week/  she  replied.  'You  didn't  hear 
yesterday  or  the  day  before?'  'No.'  'Then  I 
can  inform  you  that  you  are  a  grandmother. 
Solange  has  a  little  daughter,  and  I  am  very 
happy  to  be  the  first  to  give  you  the  news.'  I 
bowed  and  went  downstairs.  Combes,  the 
Abyssinian  traveller,  was  with  me,  and  as  I  had 
forgotten  to  say  that  you  were  well — an  important 
item — I  begged  Combes  to  go  up  again,  since  I 
am  bad  at  climbing  stairs  myself,  and  say  that 
you  and  the  child  were  both  doing  nicely.  I  was 
waiting  for  the  Abyssinian  down  below,  and  your 
mother  accompanied  him  downstairs  and  ques- 
tioned me  with  much  interest  about  your  health. 
I  told  her  that  you  had,  with  your  own  hands, 
written  a  line  to  me  in  pencil,  on  the  morning 
after  your  child's  birth,  that  you  had  suffered  a 
great  deal,  but  that  the  sight  of  your  little  one 
had  caused  you  to  forget  all  your  suffering.  She 
asked  me  if  your  husband  was  with  you,  and  I 

294 


Solange  and  Chopin 

replied  that  I  thought  the  address  of  your  note 
was  in  his  handwriting.  She  asked  me  how  I 
was.  I  answered  that  I  was  pretty  well,  and  then 
I  asked  the  concierge  to  open  the  door  for  me.  I 
bowed,  and  presently  found  myself,  led  by  the 
Abyssinian,  in  the  Square  d'Orle'ans." 

It  seems  actually  to  have  been  as  the  result  of 
this  interview  that  the  reconciliation  was  brought 
about.  A  day  or  two  afterwards  we  find  Chopin 
writing  :  "  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  about  the  kind 
letters  which  you  have  received  from  your 
mother."  But  it  was  only  the  mother  and 
daughter  who  were  thus  reconciled.  Though 
Chopin  had  brought  them  together,  his  personal 
relations  to  them  remained  unaltered.  Solange 
continued  to  complain  to  him  as  often  as  there 
was  a  renewal  of  estrangement,  and  even  begged 
him  to  renew  his  kind  offices  as  their  inter- 
mediary— especially  at  the  time  of  her  child's 
death. 

"  I  daresay  what  I  write  to  you  will  be  of  no 
avail.  She  will  not  stir.  If  she  loved  me  ever 
so  little,  she  would  be  with  me  already.  My 
God  !  How  can  she  treat  me  with  so  little  tender- 
ness ?  I  who  have  had  a  daughter  and  lost  her, 
though  so  young,  cannot  understand  her.  It  is 
such  a  cruel  and  terrible  thing  to  be  a  mother  no 
longer.  Ah !  she  knows  nothing  about  that. 
But  God  preserve  her — she  may  know  it  soon." 

295 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

This  time,  however,  Chopin  could  not  intervene. 
He  responded,  indeed,  to  an  appeal  to  give  good 
advice  to  Cl^singer,  who  received  it  respectfully, 
if  he  did  not  follow  it ;  but  he  no  longer  met 
George  Sand,  and  was  hardening  his  heart 
against  her.  He  was  ill,  and  doubtless  missed 
the  comforts  of  home-life  ;  and  his  letters  to  his 
family  reproduce  his  bitterness  in  crescendo  tones. 
Even  before  the  final  parting  we  find  malicious 
references  to  the  "cousin,"  Augustine,  who 
"  reckons  upon  Maurice  because  he  profits  from 
her  favours."  Then  we  find  the  recitation  of 
Solange's  grievances  transmitted  to  Poland. 
Then  we  read  that  "one  would  think  that  her 
idea  was  to  get  rid  of  her  daughter  and  myself 
at  the  same  time  because  she  found  us  a  nuisance," 
and  that  she  cannot  endure  to  have  either 
Solange  or  himself  near  her  because  they  are 
"  the  mirror  of  her  own  conscience  "  ;  and  then  :— 

"  That  is  why  she  has  not  written  a  line  to  me ; 
that  is  why  she  will  not  come  to  Paris  this 
winter.  ...  I  do  not  regret  having  helped  her 
to  endure  the  eight  most  delicate  years  of 
her  life — those  in  which  she  was  bringing  up  her 
son.  I  do  not  regret  what  I  have  suffered.  But 
I  do  regret  that  her  daughter,  that  plant  so  care- 
fully tended,  and  shielded  from  so  many  storms, 
has  been  broken  in  her  mother's  hands  with  an 
imprudence  and  a  levity  which  one  might  excuse  in 
a  woman  of  twenty,  but  not  in  a  woman  of  forty." 

296 


Chopin's  Letters 

And  then  : — 

"  It  has  been  said  that  she  is  writing  her 
Memoirs ;  but  in  a  letter  to  Madame  Marliani 
Madame  Sand  writes  that  the  work  will  not  be 
what  is  commonly  understood  by  Memoirs,  but 
rather  her  reflections  on  art,  literature,  etc. 
Indeed,  it  is  too  early  for  the  other  thing.  The 
dear  Madame  Sand  will  have  many  more  adven- 
tures in  her  life  before  she  grows  old ;  many 
things,  both  beautiful  and  ugly,  will  still  happen 
to  her." 

And  then  : — 

"  She  no  longer  writes  to  me,  and  I  no  longer 
write  to  her.  She  has  given  instructions  to  her 
landlord  to  let  her  apartment  in  Paris.  Sol 
writes  to  me  that  she  is  with  her  father  Dudevant 
in  Gascony.  Her  husband  is  here  finishing  his 
marbles  for  the  Exhibition  which  will  take  place 
in  March.  They  have  no  money,  so  it  is  better 
that  Sol  should  pass  the  winter  in  a  good  climate. 
But  the  poor  child  is  bored.  A  pretty  honeymoon 
that!  In  the  meantime  the  mother  writes 
beautiful  serials  for  the  Ddbdts.  She  gets  up 
private  theatricals  in  the  country  in  her  daughter's 
nuptial  chamber ;  she  forgets  her  troubles,  and 
dazes  herself  as  best  she  can,  and  will  not  rouse 
herself  until  she  feels  her  heart  aching — that  heart 
over  which  her  head  at  present  prevails.  I  have 
borne  my  cross  in  the  matter.  God  help  her  if 

297 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

she  cannot  distinguish  true  attachment  from 
flattery !  Her  friends  and  neighbours  have  long 
been  unable  to  comprehend  her  proceedings. 
Indeed,  no  one  will  ever  be  able  to  keep  pace 
with  a  soul  so  capricious.  Eight  years  of  a 
regular  life  were  too  much  for  her.  God  has 
granted  that  these  years  were  those  in  which  her 
children  were  growing  up.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  me,  her  children  would  long  ago  have  left  her 
for  their  father  ;  and  Maurice  is  likely  to  go  and 
join  his  father  at  the  first  good  opportunity. 
Perhaps  those  conditions  are  essential  to  her 
talent  and  her  happiness.  But  do  not  be  dis- 
tressed about  it.  Already  it  seems  a  long  time 
ago,  and  Time  is  a  great  physician,  though  I  have 
not  yet  quite  recovered." 

And  finally  there  is  the  full  relation  of  the 
ugly  story  of  Augustine — "  the  dirty  story  of 
which  all  Paris  is  talking."  Maurice  would  not 
marry  her.  Maurice  will  never  marry  except  for 
money.  But  he  "  wanted  to  have  a  pretty  cousin 
in  the  house,"  and  was  accommodated  ;  and  then 
the  pretty  cousin  was  married  to  the  first  husband 
who  could  be  found  for  her.  Her  father  has 
printed  and  circulated  pamphlets  setting  forth  her 
wrongs. 

"It  is  an  unworthy  act  on  his  part,  but  the 
story  is  true.  That  is  the  act  of  benevolence 
which  she  said  she  would  accomplish,  and  which 

298 


Chopin's  Letters 

I  opposed  as  strongly  as  I  could  when  the 
girl  was  brought  to  the  house.  .  .  .  She 
was  dressed  like  Sol,  and  better  cared  for, 
because  Maurice  insisted.  When  her  parents 
wanted  her  home  again,  they  would  not  let  her 
go  because  Maurice  objected.  .  .  .  The  mother 
was  embarrassed  by  the  daughter  who,  unfor- 
tunately, saw  all  that  was  going  on.  Hence 
lies,  shame,  further  embarrassment,  and  all  the 
rest  of  it." 

That  is  the  note  on  which  the  letters  quit  the 
subject.  In  the  rest  of  the  correspondence  George 
Sand's  name  is  not  even  mentioned. 


299 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

Chopin's  concert  tour  in  England — His  return  to  Paris — His  last 
illness — George  Sand  refused  admission  to  his  apartment — 
His  death. 

AT  the  time  when  he  parted  from  George  Sand, 
Chopin,  though  he  probably  did  not  know  it, 
was  already  a  dying  man.  One  cannot  say, 
indeed,  exactly  at  what  date  the  seeds  of  con- 
sumption were  sown  in  his  delicate  constitution, 
for  medical  diagnosis  was  much  less  certain  and 
scientific  in  those  days  than  it  is  in  these  ;  but  the 
malady  was  at  that  time  well  advanced  and 
making  rapid  strides.  It  was  as  a  dying  man 
that  he  undertook  his  great  concert  tour  in 
England,  uttering  his  swan  song  in  a  blaze  of 
glory. 

He  was  received  with  enthusiasm  ;  his  triumph 
was  social  as  well  as  professional.  Lord  Fal- 
mouth  lent  him  his  house  for  one  of  his  con- 
certs. He  was  invited  everywhere,  and  met 
everybody :  Queen  Victoria,  Prince  Albert,  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  the  Duchess  of  Argyll, 
Lady  Granville,  Lady  Cadogan,  Lady  Lansdowne, 
and  Lady  Byron ;  Lady  Norton,  Lady  Blessing 

300 


Chopin  in  London 

ton,  and  Count  D'Orsay ;  Carlyle,  Rogers,  and 
Dickens ;  Mrs.  Grote,  and  Monckton  Milnes, 
and  Jenny  Lind.  He  and  Jenny  Lind  spent  a 
whole  morning  of  four  hours  together  at  the  piano. 
Presently  his  pupil,  Miss  Sterling,  carried  him 
off  to  Scotland,  and  he  exclaimed,  "  What 
delightful  people  these  Scotswomen  are !  I 
cannot  express  a  wish  for  anything  without 
immediately  getting  it.  They  even  bring  me  the 
French  papers  every  day."  His  friends,  moreover, 
pressed  him  to  winter  in  England,  in  spite  of  the 
climate  ;  and  for  a  moment  he  hesitated. 

"  I  should  prefer  something  else,  but  really  I 
don't  know  what.  In  October  I  shall  see  and 
shall  act  according  to  the  state  of  my  health  and 
my  purse.  Another  hundred  guineas  in  my 
pocket  would  not  hurt  me.  If  London  were  not 
so  gloomy,  and  if  the  people  were  not  so  dull  and 
heavy,  and  if  there  were  not  this  smell  of  coal, 
and  these  fogs,  I  would  sit  down  and  learn 
English.  But  the  English  are  so  different  from 
the  French,  to  whom  I  have  attached  myself  as 
to  my  own  countrymen.  ...  If  I  were  younger, 
I  would  turn  myself  into  a  machine,  and  give 
concerts  everywhere,  and  play  the  most  absurd 
things,  provided  that  I  got  well  paid  for  it.  But 
it  is  difficult  to  turn  myself  into  a  machine  at  my 
time  of  life." 

Probably  the  stay  in  England  did  hasten  the 
301 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

end,  and  certainly  England  was  no  place  for  him. 
In  England  music  is  a  luxury,  whereas  elsewhere 
it  is  an  art.  So  Chopin  noted  when  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  go.  Only  to  a  few  choice  spirits 
could  he  ever  be  more  than  a  popular  entertainer. 
Yet  he  can  hardly  have  been  unhappy  here  ;  for 
he  lived  with  the  few  to  whom  he  was  an  artist 
— perhaps  the  greatest  of  artists  —  and  from 
whom  he  received  an  affectionate  and  reverent 
adoration.  There  is  no  better  testimony  to  the 
lovableness  of  Chopin's  character  than  the  way  in 
which  his  pupils,  both  men  and  women,  English, 
and  French,  and  Polish,  rallied  to  him  when  he 
needed  them  at  the  last. 

When  he  returned  to  Paris  in  January  1849, 
his  state  was  pitiable.  We  read  of  him  as  "a 
painful  spectacle,  the  picture  of  exhaustion,  the 
back  bent,  head  bowed — but  always  amiable  and 
full  of  distinction."  He  was  no  longer  strong 
enough  to  give  lessons,  and  the  money  that  he 
had  saved  was  quickly  spent.  There  are  depths 
of  pathos  in  his  last  letter  to  his  sister. 

"  Come  to  me,  if  you  can.  I  am  ill,  and  no 
doctor  can  do  me  as  much  good  as  you.  If  you 
have  no  money,  borrow  it.  When  I  am  better,  I 
shall  earn  some  easily,  and  will  repay  whoever 
has  lent  it  to  you  ;  but  now  I  am  too  hard  up  to 
send  you  anything.  My  apartment  is  large 
enough  to  take  you  in  even  if  you  bring  your  two 
children  with  you.  ...  I  do  not  myself  know 

302 


Illness  of  Chopin 

why  I  am  anxious  to  have  Louise  with  me.  It 
is  like  the  whim  of  a  woman  with  child.  I  do 
hope  the  family  will  let  her  come.  Who  knows 
if  I  shall  not  bring  her  back  with  me  when  I  am 
cured  ?  .  .  .  Madame  Obreskow,  who  has  been 
so  kind  as  to  write  to  her  (I  gave  her  Louise's 
address),  will  perhaps  persuade  her  better  than  I 
can.  Mile  de  Rozieres,  too,  will  add  a  word  in 
support  of  my  plea ;  and  Cochet,  if  he  were  here, 
would  also  speak  for  me,  for  no  doubt  he  would 
see  that  I  have  got  no  better.  ^Esculapius  has 
not  turned  up  for  the  last  ten  days,  having  at 
last  perceived  that  my  condition  is  beyond  any 
help  that  his  science  can  give.  ...  So  busy  your- 
self in  procuring  a  passport  and  some  money,  and 
make  haste.  You  know  that  the  cypresses  have 
their  caprices,  and  my  caprice  to-day  is  to  have 
you  with  me.  .  .  .  Your  brother,  devoted  to  you 
but  very  weak,  CHOPIN." 

Louise  obeyed  the  summons,  and  arrived  in 
time ;  for  it  was  June  when  her  brother  sent  for 
her,  and  he  was  to  live  until  October ;  and  she 
found  several  other  devoted  friends  gathered 
round  him,  doing  what  they  could.  Madame 
Obreskow  had  made  a  secret  arrangement  with 
his  landlord  to  pay  half  his  rent.  She  was  a 
Russian  helping  a  Pole,  but  the  sympathies  of 
artists  are  stronger  than  racial  enmities.  Princess 
Marceline  Czartoryska  sat  by  his  bedside,  like 
a  sister  of  charity,  and  nursed  him.  Madame 

303 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Rubio,  another  pupil,  knowing  his  necessities, 
wrote  to  Miss  Sterling ;  and  she  and  some  other 
Scottish  and  English  friends  subscribed  no  less  a 
sum  than  ^1000  and  sent  it  for  his  relief.  The 
envelope  containing  the  bank-notes  was  placed 
surreptitiously  on  his  mantelpiece,  so  that  he  might 
not  know  to  whom  he  owed  the  obligation,  and 
narrowly  escaped  being  thrown  into  the  fire  by 
mistake. 

Other  friends  and  pupils  who  were  with  him  in 
his  last  hours  were  Gutmann,  and  Gavard,  and 
Countess  Delphine  Potocka,  who  hurried  all  the 
way  from  Nice,  and  whom  he  asked  to  sing  to 
him  while  he  lay  dying,  and,  of  course,  Solange, 
and  Franchomme,  and  Fontana,  —  the  same 
Fontana  to  whom  he  had  written  happy  letters 
from  Majorca,  and  whose  help  he  had  sought 
when  he  was  looking  for  an  apartment  with  "  two 
communicating  bedrooms."  "  I  have  never  cursed 
anyone,"  he  said  to  Fontana  now  ;  "  but  life  has 
grown  so  intolerable  that  I  think  it  would  help 
me  to  die  more  easily  if  I  were  to  curse  Lucrezia." 
For  he  knew  now  what  Lucrezia  meant,  and 
why  it  had  been  written  ;  and,  knowing,  he  was 
sick,  not  only  of  consumption,  but  of  "the  fever 
called  living  "  too. 

And  George  Sand? 

Well,  George  Sand,  just  then,  had  many  other 
things  to  think  of  besides  Chopin's  illness.  The 
storm  started  by  the  Revolution  of  1848  was  still 
raging.  The  Republic  which  succeeded  the 

304 


Secretary  to  Ledru  Rollin 

Orleanist  monarchy  was  struggling  along  under 
difficulties,  and  she  was  a  Republican  who  took 
herself  very  seriously.  She  had  offered  her  pen 
to  the  cause,  and  the  offer  had  been  accepted. 
She  had  been  acting  as  secretary  to  Ledru  Rollin, 
and  drafting  official  manifestoes,  and  expounding 
her  views  on  political  philosophy  in  the  high-class 
magazines.  She  had  been  giving  advice  to 
everybody,  from  Lamartine  to  her  son  Maurice, 
who  had  been  elected  Mayor  of  Nohant.  "  You 
are  not  a  fanatic,"  she  wrote  to  the  former,  "and 
you  ought  to  be — you  to  whom  God  speaks  on 
Sinai."  And  to  the  latter  :  "  We  have  plenty  of 
wine  this  year,  so  you  had  better  invite  the 
National  Guard  into  the  kitchen,  regale  them  for 
an  hour  or  two  in  moderation,  talk  to  them,  and 
illuminate  their  darkness." 

That  to  begin  with,  in  the  first  heat  of  enthusiasm. 
Afterwards  there  had  come  unexpected  disappoint- 
ments, and  gradual  disillusion  :  the  discovery  that 
the  bulk  of  the  French  people  were  only  bourgeois 
after  all,  that  Lamartine  was  vain  and  weak,  and 
that  Ledru  Rollin  was  anything  but  a  man  of 
action,  and  the  consequent  inclination  to  accept, 
on  terms,  the  Bonapartist  solution  of  the  crisis. 
All  these  things  kept  her  thoughts  as  well  as  her 
pen  busy.  Decidedly  there  was  no  lack  of  occupa- 
tion to  cause  her  thoughts  to  dwell  upon  Chopin. 

They  did  not  dwell  'upon  him,  but  at  last  they 
turned   to   him.      In    September,   just   a   month 
before  his  death,  she  wrote  to  Louise  : — 
u  305 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  DEAR  LOUISE, — I  did  not  know,  but  have 
just  heard,  that  you  are  in  Paris.  I  shall  be  able 
at  last  to  hear  from  you  the  truth  about  Frederic. 
Some  tell  me  that  he  is  much  more  ill  than  usual ; 
others  that  he  is  only  weak  and  indisposed,  as  I 
have  always  known  him  to  be.  I  venture  to  ask 
you  to  write  me  a  line,  for  one  can  be  misunder- 
stood and  abandoned  by  one's  children  without 
ceasing  to  love  them.  Believe  me,  I  have  never 
passed  a  day  of  my  life  since  first  I  knew  you, 
without  thinking  of  you  and  cherishing  your 
memory.  It  may  be  that  you  no  longer  have  a 
place  for  me  in  your  heart,  but  I  do  not  think  I 
have  deserved  all  that  I  have  suffered." 

We  do  not  know  how  Louise  replied  to  this. 
What  we  do  know  is  that  George  Sand  said  to 
Franchomme,  "  He  shall  never  die  in  any  arms 
but  mine,"  and  that  she  knocked  at  Chopin's 
door,  and  was  turned  away  from  it. 

Naturally — and  perhaps  one  may  say  rightly 
and  properly — whether  it  was  the  dying  man 
himself,  or  his  friends  on  his  behalf,  who  thus 
refused  her  admission.  On  his  side  pride  was  at 
stake,  and  on  hers  only  the  vanity  of  sentiment. 
He  would  not  have  her  pity  after  he  had  lost  her 
love  ;  to  have  been  pitied  by  the  woman  who  had 
so  wounded  his  heart  would  have  been  terrible. 
And  hardly  less  shocking,  since  his  heart  still  felt 
the  wound,  would  have  been  those  pretences  of 
maternal  love  which,  as  Liszt  insisted,  were  the 

306 


Death  of  Chopin 

invariable  aftermath  of  her  amours.  There  had 
never  been  between  him  and  any  of  those  who 
watched  by  his  pillow  such  an  intimacy  of  affection 
as  had  once  subsisted  between  him  and  her.  But 
they  at  least  were  sincere,  and  unconcerned  with 
their  own  sentimental  reputations  ;  whereas  George 
Sand  desired  a  deathbed  scene  as  the  crown  and 
climax  of  a  sentimental  legend.  Such  make- 
believe  would  have  been  ghastly  at  such  an 
hour. 

So  the  temptation — and,  in  spite  of  his  speech 
about  cursing  Lucrezia,  one  can  hardly  doubt  that 
Chopin  felt  the  temptation — was  resisted  ;  and 
George  Sand  was  excluded  from  the  death- 
chamber,  and  left  to  build  her  sentimental  legend 
as  best  she  could  without  the  help  of  that  final 
false  pretence. 

The  end,  when  that  happened,  was  already 
very  near;  "the  fever  called  living  to  which 
the  wound  in  his  heart  had  brought  his  life  had 
nearly  burnt  itself  out.  For  two  days  Chopin  lay 
helpless,  speechless,  almost  unconscious,  hovering 
on  the  border-line  between  life  and  death.  It 
was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  Wednesday, 
October  the  i;th,  when  the  doctor  who  was 
watching  in  the  room,  bent  over  him,  letting  the 
light  of  the  candle  fall  upon  his  face,  and  asked 
him  whether  he  was  suffering  much. 

"  Not  any  longer,"  he  faintly  whispered  ;  and 
so  the  fever  left  him. 


307 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

The  importance  of  George  Sand's  novels— Her  relation  to  the 
Romantic  Movement. 

THE  end  of  the  Chopin  episode  may  give  the 
biographer  a  breathing  space,  and  an  opportunity 
of  saying,  without  appearing  to  digress,  the  little 
that  there  is  room  to  say  in  a  work  of  this  character 
about  George  Sand's  contributions  to  the  treasure- 
house  of  literature. 

It  seemed  perilous  to  interrupt  the  narrative 
for  the  purpose  at  any  previous  point.  The  books 
rained  in  too  continuous  a  shower  ;  and  if  one 
had  once  begun  reviewing  them  one  would  have 
been  perpetually  embarrassed  by  the  sensation 
that  here  was  a  fresh  parcel  of  them  waiting  to 
be  reviewed.  Moreover,  the  writer's  life  appeared 
always  the  more  interesting  theme  of  the  two  to 
follow.  The  excitement  of  that  drama,  however, 
necessarily  flags  with  advancing  years,  while  the 
literary  interest  remains.  The  books,  indeed, 
are  much  too  numerous  to  be  analysed  in  detail 
even  in  those  easier  conditions ;  but  the  attempt 
may  be  made  to  measure  their  collective  signifi- 
cance and  force. 

The  usual  method  of  the  French  critics  is  to 
308 


A  Glory  of  French  Literature 

begin  with  the  general  statement  that  George 
Sand  is  one  of  the  glories  of  French  literature 
and  then  to  demonstrate  in  detail  that  she  is 
t  not.  It  sounds  paradoxical,  but  the  paradox  is 
broadly  speaking  true.  She  is — and  she  is  not  ; 
she  is  not — and  yet  she  is.  And  one  might,  if 
one  chose,  follow  up  the  paradox  with  another, 
saying  that  her  worst  books  are  her  best  and  that 
her  best  books  are  her  worst, — and  also  that  she 
was  a  great  writer  who  never  succeeded  in  writing 
a  great  book. 

Decidedly  only  the  critics  who  use  the  word 
"masterpiece"  loosely  would  apply  it  to  any  of 
her  works ;  decidedly  she  wrote  no  book  of 
which  one  can  confidently  say  that  it  would  have 
" counted"  even  if  she  had  never  written  any- 
thing else, — nothing  that  stands  out  definitely 
above  the  ruck  of  books  as  do,  in  their  several 
4 'genres,"  Monte  Cristo  and  Les  Misdrables  and 
Pere  Goriot  and  Madame  Bovary.  One  does 
not  need  to  go  through  the  list  of  them  to  prove 
that  statement.  They  have  all  been  widely  read, 
and  have  had  their  chance  ;  and  it  is  not  among 
the  works  of  popular  writers  that  one  searches 
diligently  for  examples  of  neglected  merit.  The 
judgment  that  has  been  given  against  them 
cannot  have  been  given  by  default ;  their  claim 
has  not  only  been  preferred  but  weighed — and  by 
more  than  one  generation.  In  a  list  of  great 
literary  names  the  name  of  George  Sand  may 
figure ;  but  Le'lia  does  not  figure  in  any  list  of 

309 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

great  books,  nor  does  Indiana  nor  Jacques  nor 
Consuelo  nor  La  petite  Fadette,  nor  any  other 
that  may  be  selected  from  the  catalogue. 

Many  reasons  might  be  given  for  this  failure 
of  her  books  to  pass  the  highest  standards.  One 
reason  may  certainly  be  found  in  their  lack  of 
finish.  They  are  not  ''embalmed  in  style,"  but 
are  written  in  "  ce  style  coulant  cher  aux  bour- 
geois " ;  and  work  so  written  ages  rapidly. 
Another  reason  may  He  in  George  Sand's  in- 
ability— especially  when  swayed  by  emotion  or 
bitten  by  ambition — to  realise  the  life  about  her. 
Among  the  peasantry  of  Berry,  indeed,  she  seems 
as  much  at  home,  in  spite  of  her  tendency  to 
idealise,  as  Miss  Wilkins  among  the  provincial 
people  of  New  England.  But  her  preference  is 
for  the  great  passions  and  the  advanced  ideas  ; 
and  these,  whether  they  be  amorous,  religious, 
or  humanitarian,  sweep  her  into  strange  waters, 
where  landmarks  cease  to  be  distinct  and  visible. 
Her  power  of  accurate  observation  is  lost ;  the 
individual  withers  before  her  gaze ;  apart  from 
the  emotion  or  the  idea,  she  only  sees  "  men  as 
trees  walking." 

Even  her  theses,  of  course,  lose  in  interest 
through  this  vagueness  ;  for  it  means  the  ignor- 
ing of  the  circumstances  on  which,  in  actual  life, 
the  solution  of  the  problems  which  she  raises 
would  depend.  But  her  stories,  viewed  as  works 
of  art,  suffer  still  more.  We  cannot,  in  practice, 
separate  our  interest  in  emotions  from  our 

310 


A  Message  to  the  Age 

interest  in  individuals ;  and,  in  George  Sand,  an 
individual  is  too  often  only  the  embodiment  of  an 
emotion,  or  the  mouthpiece  of  a  doctrine.  Her 
minor  characters  may  occasionally  be  characters 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  word  ;  her  major  per- 
sonages are  hardly  ever  so.  She  typifies  the 
individual,  and  does  not  individualise  the  type. 
We  should  not  recognise  any  of  her  people  if  we 
met  them  in  the  street,  as  we  should  recognise 
Bouvard,  or  P^cuchet ;  we  do  not  refer  to  any  of 
them,  feeling  that  we  know  them,  as  we  refer  to 
D'Artagnan  or  Lucien  de  Rubempre\  It  is  a 
grave  limitation,  and  has  done  much  to  help  her 
books  to  be  forgotten. 

And  yet  the  books  do  count, — and  at  their 
psychological  moment  counted  for  a  good  deal, 
—having,  as  it  were,  a  certain  cumulative  effect 
as  the  vehement  expression  of  a  temperament, 
and  the  reiterated  delivery  of  a  message  to 
which  the  age  was  just  beginning  to  be  prepared 
to  listen.  Their  author  had  her  very  definite 
function  to  fulfil  in  the  warfare  waged  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Romantic  Movement. 

On  its  literary  side  the  Romantic  Movement 
was  a  revolt  against  the  classical  conventions  ; 
and  George  Sand  had  not,  consciously  and  de- 
liberately at  all  events,  very  much  to  do  with 
that.  But  it  was  also,  to  some  extent,  a  battle 
for  political  and  social  liberty ;  and  when  those 
issues  were  at  stake  George  Sand  fought  in  the 
forefront  of  the  fray.  She  was  a  Republican,  a 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Socialist,  perhaps  even  a  Communist ;  but  in 
particular  she  fought  for  what  she  conceived  to 
be  the  rights  of  her  sex,  and  for  what  one  may 
style  their  sentimental  emancipation. 

All  the  Romantic  leaders  were  more  or  less 
anarchists  in  sexual  matters.  The  love  stories  of 
the  Romantic  Movement  form  an  interesting 
chapter  in  sentimental  as  well  as  literary  annals. 
Victor  Hugo,  as  Chopin  has  told  us,  took  a  lady 
of  light  morals  from  the  boards  of  the  Porte  Saint- 
Martin,  and  established  her  as  his  mistress  and 
his  Muse.  Sainte-Beuve  made  love  to  Hugo's 
wife,  and  boasted  of  her  favours  in  disgraceful 
verse.  Liszt,  as  we  have  seen,  was  carried  off 
to  Italy  and  Geneva  by  Madame  d'Agoult. 
Alfred  de  Vigny,  in  spite  of  his  mother's  warning 
that  the  company  of  actresses  was  worse  than 
that  of  prostitutes,  fell  a  victim  to  the  fascinations 
of  Marie  Dorval,  who  was  soon  unfaithful  to  him, 
preferring  her  lovers  to  be  "  rigolo."  Free  love, 
that  is  to  say,  was  in  the  air  even  before  the 
Saint-Simonians  made  a  cult  of  it. 

The  men,  however,  naturally  looked  at  free 
love  from  a  man's  point  of  view,  which  is  pretty 
much  the  same  in  all  the  ages.  They  had  Don 
Juan  for  their  prototype,  and  were  rather  libertines 
than  preachers  of  a  new  sexual  gospel.  One  can 
even  picture  them  saying  of  their  mistresses— 
and  of  each  other's  mistresses — what  Cato  said 
of  the  prostitutes  of  Rome,  "  Behold  the  pro- 
tectors of  our  wives  and  daughters ! "  But 

o 

312 


"  Love  the  only  Law-Giver" 

George  Sand  spoke  on  behalf  of  the  wives  and 
daughters,  claiming  that  they  too  should  be  freed 
from  the  tyranny  of  convention  and  prescription, 
and  that,  for  them  too,  love  should  be  the  only 
law-giver.  Just  as  her  life  illustrated  this  side 
of  the  Romantic  Movement  in  practice,  so  her 
early  stories  expounded  it  in  theory,  deducing 
the  conclusions  from  the  premisses  with  an  un- 
flinching logic. 

Her  minor  premiss  was  supplied  by  her  own 
unfortunate  experience  of  married  life,  and  by 
her  4iscovery  that  her  own  heart  was  fickle  even 
in  intrigue.  Her  major  premiss  came  to  her 
from  Rousseau  through  Madame  de  Stae'l.  Like 
them,  she  "posited"  that  love  was  a  divine 
instinct  and  the  act  of  loving  a  virtue.  Like 
Madame  de  Stae'l — for  Rousseau's  love  affairs 
were  more  imaginary  than  real — she  "  felt  good  " 
even  when  she  behaved  badly,  and  even  when 
she  made  herself  ridiculous.  It  is  the  same  with 
the  heroes  and  heroines  of  Ldlia  and  Jacques  and 
the  other  novels  of  that  group.  Not  only  their 
irregularities,  but  also  their  infidelities  appear  as 
acts  of  compliance  with  the  Divine  Harmony  and 
obedience  to  the  Higher  Law.  The  Jesuitical 
maxim  that  "  the  end  sanctifies  the  means  "  is,  in 
effect,  transferred  from  clerical  to  amorous  affairs. 
And  George  Sand  has,  in  her  studies,  so  isolated 
the  phenomenon  of  which  she  treats  that  love 
appears  not  as  "three  parts  of  life"  but  as  the 
whole  of  it.  To  love  is  the  unique  occupation 

313 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

of  her  characters.  They  have  no  trade  or  pro- 
fession, and  no  other  interest  than  that.  When 
they  cease  to  be  in  love,  they  feel  that  it  is  time 
for  them  to  die. 

One  might,  of  course,  attack  the  premisses. 
M.  Jules  Lemaitre  lately  did  so,  vigorously  and 
effectively,  in  an  essay  on  La  nouvelle  Hdloise, 
pointing  out  that  love,  so  far  from  necessarily 
inspiring  virtuous  conduct,  may  also,  as  the 
newspapers  daily  show  us,  be  the  motive  of 
crime.  But  let  that  pass.  It  is  just  as  profit- 
able to  take  the  syllogism  as  it  stands,  and 
observe  the  conclusions  to  which  George  Sand 
suffers  herself  to  be  led  by  it.  Here  is  our 
starting-point  :— 

"  The  immense  superiority  of  this  sentiment 
over  all  others — the  proof  of  its  Divine  origin — 
is  that  it  does  not  originate  as  an  act  of  human 
will,  and  that  man,  unaided,  is  powerless  to  direct 
it.  He  cannot  bestow  it,  and  he  cannot  recall 
it,  by  an  act  of  volition  ;  but  the  human  heart 
receives  it  from  on  high,  no  doubt  for  the  pur- 
pose of  conferring  it  upon  the  creature  chosen 
for  him  by  the  designs  of  Providence  ;  and  when 
a  soul  of  strength  and  energy  has  received  it, 
it  is  in  vain  that  human  considerations  raise 
their  voices  for  its  destruction.  Its  existence  is 
self-sufficient  and  independent." 

That  is  the  generalisation.     A  few  lines  farther 
3H 


Glorification  of  Free  Love 

on,  we  find  it  particularised,  for  the  benefit  of  a 
pair  of  lovers  who  are  not,  as  the  world  would 
say,  "free":— 

"  Had  not  Supreme  Providence,  which,  in  spite 
of  man,  is  omnipresent,  presided  over  this  union  ? 
Each  of  the  lovers  was  necessary  to  the  other : 
Benedict  to  Valentine,  that  he  might  teach  her 
the  emotions  without  which  life  is  incomplete ; 
Valentine  to  Benedict,  that  she  might  import 
peace  and  consolation  into  a  stormy  and 
tormented  life.  But  between  them  stood  Society, 
treating  their  choice  as  absurd,  guilty,  and  im- 
pious. Providence  created  the  admirable  order 
of  nature ;  men  have  destroyed  it.  Which  is 
to  be  held  to  blame  ?  " 

So  much  for  the  happy  beginnings  of  illicit 
love ;  and  it  seems  that  Providence  is  still  there 
when  love  takes  wings  and  prepares  to  fly 
away.  This  is  Jacques'  pronunciamento  on  the 
subject : — 

"  I  have  never  teased  my  imagination  either 
to  kindle  in  my  breast  the  sentiment  which  I 
could  not  find  there  or  to  revive  the  sentiment 
which  had  become  extinct.  Nor  have  I  ever 
imposed  constancy  upon  myself  as  a  duty. 
When  I  have  felt  my  love  failing,  I  have  ad- 
mitted the  fact  without  shame,  and  without 
remorse,  and  have  obeyed  the  Providence  which 
attracted  me  elsewhere." 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

In  these  passages  we  find  the  sanction  of  the 
common  saying,  already  quoted  in  this  work, 
that  "in  George  Sand,  when  a  woman  wishes 
to  change  her  lover,  God  is  always  there  to 
facilitate  the  transfer."  It  follows,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  that  the  transfer  has  its  solemn  ritual. 
Jacques'  wife,  Fernande,  has  forsaken  him  for 
Octave  : — 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Octave,"  she  exclaimed  to  her 
lover,  "we  will  never  pass  the  night  together 
without  first  kneeling  down  and  praying  for 
Jacques." 

The  whole  argument,  if  one  may  call  it  so, 
of  George  Sand's  early  romances  is  in  these 
passages.  Perhaps  the  reductio  ad  absurdum 
of  the  argument  is  in  them  too.  Certainly  it 
shocks  one's  sense  of  humour — to  look  at  the 
matter  from  no  higher  point  of  view  than  that 
—  to  find  the  Christian  God  represented  as 
the  tutelary  deity  of  the  adulterers,  and  the 
suggestion  put  forward  that  those  who  are 
about  to  profane  the  marriage  tie  should  open 
their  proceedings  with  prayer  for  those  whom 
they  despitefully  use.  It  is  a  proposal  which 
seems  even  to  pass  the  limits  of  farcical  extrava- 
ganza. 

None  the  less,  it  was  made  seriously,  and  has 
been  taken  seriously,  even  by  readers  whose 
sound  moral  preconceptions  forbade  them  to  take 

316 


The  Ideal  of  Marriage 

it  literally.  It  has  appealed,  for  instance,  to  George 
Sand's  English  critic  and  admirer,  Miss  Bertha 
Thomas,  who  appears  to  find  in  such  passages 
a  high  allegorical  significance,  who  has  per- 
suaded herself  that  George  Sand's  "  ideal  of 
marriage  was  a  high  one,"  and  who  insists  that 
"  the  alleged  hostility  of  her  romances  to 
marriage  resumes  itself  into  a  declared  hostility 
to  the  conventional  French  system  of  match- 
making." 

It  is  not,  indeed,  very  easy  to  see  how  the 
text  is  to  stand  the  interpretation  which  British 
respectability  thus  aspires  to  put  upon  it. 
Certainly  nothing  that  we  know  of  George 
Sand's  life  favours  Miss  Thomas'  gloss.  But 
the  important  thing  is  not  that  Miss  Thomas 
has  offered  an  inconclusive  apology  for  George 
Sand's  expression  of  her  views,  but  that  she 
has  been  moved  by  them  instead  of  being 
shocked.  For  if  they  have  thus  moved  her, 
one  can  understand  how  much  more  they 
must  have  moved  thousands  of  others  —  and 
especially  of  the  women,  unhappily  married, 
who  indulged  in  day-dreams  of  what  might 
have  been.  Those  women  and  the  young 
men  who  sighed  for  them  formed  the  audience 
specially  addressed.  They  took  what  they 
wanted  from  the  novels,  and  ignored  the  rest, 
finding  in  them,  as  it  were,  a  manual  of  devotion 
which  helped  them  to  "feel  good"  while  toying 
with  forbidden  fruit — a  marriae  service  for  use 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

when  eloping  with  a  neighbour's  wife  —  an 
Imitatio  Magdalentz  or  Samaritans. 

Little  of  it  was  really  new.  Most  of  it  had 
been  written  before  by  Jean  -  Jacques  in  La 
nouvelle  Hdloise.  But  it  seemed  new  because 
it  was  modern,  because  it  was  explicit,  and  be- 
because  it  was  written  from  the  woman's  point 
of  view.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  first  emphatic 
presentment  of  the  woman's  point  of  view  in 
literature  ;  and  though  it  is  very  obviously  the 
point  of  view  of  a  woman  who  had  the  blood  of 
many  light  o'  loves  coursing  in  her  veins,  that 
is  why  we  are  bound  to  admit  that  the  books 
count  even  if  we  find  them  unreadable.  In 
them,  for  the  first  time,  the  "feminine  note  in 
literature "  sounded  loud  enough  for  the  world 
to  hear.  They  may  be  bad,  but  they  are  unique. 

That  is  the  inwardness  of  our  paradox — that 
George  Sand's  worst  books  are  also  her  best. 
Her  later  writings  are  superior  to  them  from 
many  points  of  view.  They  are  more  mature 
and  workmanlike  ;  their  description  and  observa- 
tion are  both  better.  But  they  are  not  unique, 
they  are  less  individual.  The  feminine  note  is 
still  there,  but  it  grows  less  personal ;  and 
though  some  of  the  idyllic  pictures  of  the  later 
periods  are  delightful,  they  still  fall  short  of  that 
supreme  merit  which  one  demands  before  one 
admits  that  one  is  in  the  presence  of  a  master- 
piece destined  to  survive. 

And  this  for  various  reasons.     One  reason   is 


Outlived  her  Period 

that  George  Sand  was  the  child  of  her  period, 
and  outlived  it.  She  had  not,  like  Victor  Hugo, 
a  humanitarian  gospel  to  deliver  which  was 
absolutely  independent  of  the  circumstances  of 
the  thirties.  Consequently  she  was  thrown  back, 
more  and  more,  upon  her  technical  skill  as  a  story- 
teller ;  and  that  did  not  suffice  to  give  her  the 
highest  place.  Another  reason  is  that  she  worked 
too  hard,  and  tried  to  serve  God  and  Mammon. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  she  might,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  proclaim  the  philosophic  and  artistic 
truth  and  "  make  copy  for  Buloz."  But  that  could 
not  be ;  and  she  fell  between  two  stools,  as  many 
another  has  done  before  and  after  her. 

Moreover,  the  history  of  George  Sand's 
intellectual  development  is  largely  the  history  of 
the  development  of  a  voice  into  an  echo — of  a 
teacher  into  a  disciple.  The  severance  from 
Musset,  in  fact,  is  the  great  turning-point  in  her 
career.  He  influenced  her  very  little, — though 
his  friends  expressed  the  fear  that  he  would 
"leave  his  genius  in  that  woman's  bed," — and 
Sandeau  and  Merimee  had  influenced  her  still  less. 
After  Musset  had  left  her,  however,  she  felt  that  she 
needed  not  only  a  lover  but  also  a  moral  support. 
She  found  both,  for  a  season,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  Michel  de  Bourges  ;  and  thereafter  she  under- 
went many  influences,  each  of  which  in  turn  is 
mirrored  in  her  writings.  She  became  the  porte- 
parole  first  of  Michel,  and  then  of  Lamennais, 
of  Pierre  Leroux,  and  others. 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

We  need  not  stop  to  examine  and  discuss  those 
influences  in  detail.  On  the  whole,  they  probably 
were  influences  for  good,  though  not  the  best  to 
which  she  could  have  submitted.  One  is  not 
called  upon  to  prove,  for  instance,  that  the  teaching 
of  Paroles  d'un  Croyant  is  both  morally  and 
intellectually  on  a  higher  plane  than  the  teaching 
of  Ltlia  and  Jacques.  The  important  thing 
is  that  the  teaching  is  Lamennais'  (or  Leroux'  or 
Michel's)  and  not  hers.  She  soaked  it  in  with  the 
ready  receptivity  of  a  student  preparing  for  an 
examination ;  she  poured  it  out  again  with  the 
fluency  of  a  counsel  speaking  from  a  brief.  She 
even  passed  it  on,  before  she  had  thought  it  out 
and  absorbed  it,  in  her  letters  to  her  boy  at  school. 
Clever  books,  no  doubt,  can  be  written  in  that 
superficial  fashion ;  but  the  foundations  of  the 
literature  that  is  to  last  must  be  laid  more 
deeply. 

The  conclusion  seems  clear.  As  a  thinker 
George  Sand  was  shallow  and  second-hand — an 
^^Eolian  harp  that  made  music  of  a  sort  when  blown 
upon  by  any  wind  of  doctrine.  She  takes  the 
pose  of  an  evangelist  when,  in  reality,  she  is  no 
more  than  a  vulgarisatrice.  She  is  most  interest- 
ing— because  she  is  most  original — when  she  feels 
for  herself,  and  does  not  stop  to  think  at  all. 
And  to  say  that  is  to  say,  at  the  end,  what  we 
said  at  the  beginning — that  the  real  literary  land- 
marks in  her  life  are  the  novels  of  the  Jacques 
and  Ltlia  group.  They,  at  least,  strike  a  new 

320 


The  Feminine  Note  in  Fiction 

note,  a  feminine  note,  and  an  individual  note. 
They  are  the  expression  of  a  temperament  at 
once  typical  and  unique  ;  and  though  they  leave 
the  modern  reader  cold,  or  even  give  him  cause 
to  smile,  they  had  a  real  influence  on  the  genera- 
tion to  which  they  were  addressed. 


x  321 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

End  of  George  Sand's  sentimental  life — Manceau  "  the  last  link  in 
the  chain  " — The  affairs  of  Solange — Her  quarrels  with  her 
husband — Her  separation  from  him — Solange  in  Paris — Her 
correspondence  with  George  Sand. 

WE  may  take  it  that  George  Sand's  romantic  life 
ended  on  the  day  on  which  Chopin's  friends 
refused  to  admit  her  to  his  room,  and  she  learnt 
the  vanity  of  her  vow  that  he  should  not  die  in 
any  arms  but  hers. 

She  was  forty-five  and  a  grandmother.  She 
had  lost  her  beauty,  and  was  becoming  fat ;  a 
very  few  years  later  we  find  Edmond  de 
Goncourt,  in  his  Diary,  describing  her  face  as 
"mummified,"  and  Matthew  Arnold  doubting 
whether  it  was  worth  while  "to  go  so  far  to  meet 
such  a  fat  old  Muse."  Her  manner  even  began 
to  acquire  a  certain  stupefaction,  due,  no  doubt, 
to  overwork ;  she  had  domestic  anxieties  to 
worry  her.  So  she  essayed  no  more  romantic 
enterprises,  but  rested  from  her  labours,  if  not 
thankfully,  at  least  contentedly.  Her  heart  was 
a  cemetery  ;  but  there  were  no  more  crosses  to  be 
set  up  in  it,  though  she  had  still  twenty-seven 
years  to  live.  It  will  be  possible,  therefore,  to 
pass  over  this  last  period  rapidly  and  lightly. 

322 


Manceau 

The  only  name  which  it  is  imperative  to 
mention  is  that  of  Manceau.  He  was  an 
engraver  in  bad  health  who  lived  in  George  Sand's 
house  for  many  years — a  factotum  filling  in- 
definite functions — and  M.  Le  Roy  writes  of  him, 
in  George  Sand  et  ses  amis,  as  "  the  last  link  in 
the  chain  in  which  the  first  link  was  Aurdlien  de 
Seze."  She  lamented  him,  when  he  died  in  1865, 
as  one  who  had  been  something  more  than  a 
servant,  writing  of  herself  as  "  now  at  last  left 
quite  alone,"  and  adding  : — 

"  I  do  not  regard  him  as  unhappy  in  the 
region  in  which  he  dwells  ;  but  that  image  of 
himself  which  he  has  left  with  me,  and  which  is 
only  like  a  reflection  in  a  mirror,  seems  to  be 
complaining  that  it  can  no  longer  speak  to  me." 

That,  however,  proves  nothing ;  and  there  is 
no  other  proof.  We  have  no  right  to  say  that 
the  refined  artisan  was  attached  to  the  chain  by 
any  stronger  rivet  than  the  aristocratic  lawyer  of 
Bordeaux.  The  end  of  the  series  of  experiences, 
we  may  reasonably  conjecture,  was  not  less  calm 
than  the  beginning ;  though  between  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end  there  had  intervened  the  many 
passionate  passages  of  which  we  have  had  to 
speak  at  length.  We  may  resume  the  narrative 
without  further  reference  to  Manceau. 

In  1849,  indeed,  and  in  the  early  fifties, 
George  Sand  was  much  more  occupied  with 

323 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

her  daughter's  affairs  than  with  her  own.  It 
was  well  that  Chopin  had  made  the  peace 
between  them,  for  Solange  had  need  of  her 
mother.  The  marriage  on  which  she  had  in- 
sisted was  a  failure,  —  not  only  for  pecuniary 
reasons, — and  it  was  not  long  before  incompati- 
bilities of  temper  declared  themselves.  Cl^singer, 
though  an  artist,  was  a  vulgarian.  Solange  had 
an  active,  restless  mind,  incapable  of  concentra- 
tion, and  very  capable  of  being  bored.  We 
soon  find  her  protesting  angrily  her  right  to  a 
happiness  which  she  does  not  enjoy. 

"  You  tell  me  that  youth  is  the  period  in 
which  one's  personality  asserts  itself.  Certainly  ; 
you  are  quite  right.  In  the  first  place  because 
[a  line  is  missing  here],  save  in  exceptional  cases, 
age  is  the  time  when  one  is  dull  and  egoistical. 
And,  in  the  second  place,  jeimesse  oblige.  I 
mean  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  one 
should  be  happy  when  one  is  young.  When 
is  one  to  be  happy  if  not  then  ?  Happiness ! 
I  regard  it  as  the  most  sacred  right  of  youth. 
Duty?  It  is  a  fine  word  that  means  nothing. 
Virtue?  It  is  a  deception." 

Complaints  of  Cl^singer  quickly  followed.  He 
"  is  a  madman  if  ever  there  was  one."  Solange 
wants  a  separation,  and  to  have  the  custody  of 
her  child.  The  little  one  must  not  be  allowed 
to  grow  up  under  the  influence  of  "a  man  so 

324 


Solange  and  Her  Husband 

coarse  and  cynical "  —  a  man  who  "  respects 
nothing  in  the  world."  But  then  it  appears 
that  Cl^singer  also  has  his  grievances.  Having 
grounds  for  suspicion,  he  bursts  unexpectedly 
into  his  wife's  bedroom  to  look  for  evidence 
to  confirm  it.  He  finds  love  letters  —  not 
in  his  handwriting — carries  them  off,  and  hands 
them  to  his  lawyer,  to  be  used  as  pieces  justifi- 
catives  putting  him  in  the  right  in  the  pending 
litigation. 

That  is  the  beginning  of  a  long  story,  only 
indirectly  relevant  to  the  present  work.  Husband 
and  wife  communicated  only  through  the  medium 
of  their  solicitors,  and  prosecuted  each  other 
with  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law.  Disputes 
about  the  custody  of  the  child  were  complicated 
with  disputes  about  the  dowry.  The  litigants 
threatened  to  seize  each  other's  furniture  and 
to  sell  each  other  up.  It  was  an  intricate  and 
sordid,  as  well  as  a  violent,  quarrel.  Happily 
we  are  only  concerned  with  it  in  so  far  as  it 
affected  George  Sand. 

At  first  we  find  her  advising  Solange  to  seek 
peace  of  mind  in  literary  work.  The  ennui  of 
which  Solange  complains  may,  she  says,  be 
conquered  in  that  way.  Solange  retorts  effect- 
ively with  a  quotation  from  her  mother's  own 
Lettres  d\tn  Voyageur :  "  Ennui  is  a  languor 
of  the  soul,  an  intellectual  want  of  tone,  which 
follows  in  the  train  of  great  emotions  or  great 
desires.  Neither  work  nor  pleasure  is  a  sufficient 

325 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

distraction  from  it."  But  George  Sand  returns 
to  the  charge.  Let  Solange  try  her  hand  at 
composition,  and  send  what  she  writes  to  Nohant 
for  correction.  She  will  not  merely  tell  her  that 
it  is  good,  or  bad,  but  will  show  her  exactly 
what  is  wrong  with  it.  And  she  adds,  drawing 
on  her  own  reminiscences  : — 

"Youth  is  undoubtedly  an  age  of  suffering. 
One  cannot  persuade  oneself  that  certain  dreams 
are  nothing  more  than  dreams  ;  and  if  you  rack 
your  brains  over  the  matter  as  I  did  at  your 
age,  you  will  never  have  finished.  I  can  truly 
say  that  I  never  began  to  live  until  the  day  on 
which  I  began  to  work  for  my  living." 

No  doubt  one  reason  why  this  advice  was 
given,  and  reiterated,  as  we  find  it  reiterated 
at  intervals  throughout  many  years,  was  that 
Solange  often  had  to  ask  her  mother  for 
money ;  but  the  reasons  alleged  may  also  be 
assumed  to  have  been  sincere.  George  Sand 
was  in  a  position  to  know,  if  anyone  did,  the 
value  of  work  as  an  anodyne.  Presently,  how- 
ever, the  development  of  the  drama  brought 
the  need  for  other  counsel  and  other  help.  The 
fight  for  the  possession  of  poor  little  Jeanne 
Cl^singer,  commonly  known  by  the  pet  name 
of  "  Nini,"  was  in  progress,  and  Solange  in- 
voked her  mother  as  an  ally. 

The  child  was  sent  to  and  fro,  to  and  fro, 
326 


"Hide  Nini': 

between  Besangon,  where  Clesinger's  parents 
lived,  and  Nohant.  There  was  a  day  when 
Nini,  returning  after  a  long  absence  to  her 
mother,  did  not  recognise  her.  That  was  a  pain- 
ful blow,  and  another  seemed  to  be  imminent,  for 
Cl^singer  was  threatening  to  abduct  the  child. 
"  Hide  Nini,"  wrote  Solange  to  her  mother ; 
and  George  Sand  took  the  precautions  that 
seemed  necessary,  and  promised  that  Manceau 
and  the  others  would  turn  the  hose  on  Clesinger 
if  he  tried  to  carry  out  his  threat. 

A  number  of  letters  about  Nini  follow.  Nini 
at  Nohant  is  evidently  in  danger  of  being  spoilt. 
She  suffers  from  some  infantile  ailment,  and 
the  doctor  orders  the  application  of  a  blister. 
Nini  submits  only  on  condition  that  the  blister 
shall  be  decorated  with  pink  and  blue  ribbons, 
and  that  Manceau  shall  whistle  her  a  tune 
while  it  is  being  applied.  George  Sand  finds 
Nini  "  ravishing,"  and  wants  to  keep  her  and 
teach  her  to  be  good;  but  Solange  " hungers 
and  thirsts  "  for  Nini,  and  expects  to  be  allowed 
to  pounce  down  upon  Nohant  and  carry  her 
off  at  any  moment.  There  is  a  sharp  exchange 
of  opinions  about  this,  and  then  there  is  talk 
of  sending  Nini  to  a  convent.  It  would  be 
easier  to  hide  her  from  her  father  there  than 
anywhere  else.  Nuns  might  be  found  who 
had  no  scruples,  but  would  guard  the  child 
in  their  cloistered  retreat  as  in  a  fortress. 
Better  that  she  should  be  taught  to  believe 

327 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

in  the  Immaculate  Conception  than  that  she 
should  fall  into  the  hands  of  such  women  as 
those  whose  company  Clesinger  has  taken  to 
frequenting ! 

Then,  in  the  midst  of  these  arguments,  we 
hear  that  Solange  has  been  converted — in  part 
if  not  entirely  —  to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith. 
"If  I  do  not  end  by  believing  it  all,"  she  writes, 
"  it  will  not  be  my  fault :  Ma  fille  vaut  bien 
une  messe ;"  and  she  goes  on  to  define  the 
articles  of  her  belief:  "I  am  convinced  of  the 
divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ;  but  I  cannot  swallow 
the  Immaculate  Conception,  the  worship  of  the 
Virgin,  and  the  infallibility  of  the  Church." 
None  the  less,  she  means  to  live  a  "new  life," 
and  regards  herself  not  as  a  Protestant  but 
as  a  Catholic  in  the  making,  and  receives  her 
"  first  communion  "  on  that  hypothesis.  When 
the  news  comes,  a  week  later,  that  the  Tribunal 
has  decided  that  Nini  shall  be  brought  up 
by  her  grandmother,  it  seems  an  instance  of 
Providence  rewarding  piety.  But  George  Sand, 
recalling  her  own  experiences  of  such  litigation, 
warns  her  that  all  is  not  yet  over  -  -  that  an 
appeal  is  possible ;  and  then  we  turn  another 
page  of  the  correspondence  and  read  of  Nini's 
death. 

One  might  have  expected  the  common  sorrow 
to  draw  mother  and  daughter  closer  together. 
Perhaps  it  did  so  for  a  little  while — but  not  for 
long.  The  natural  course,  if  George  Sand  and 

328 


Solange  not  Wanted 

Solange  had  been  like  other  people,  would 
have  seemed  to  be  for  the  daughter  to  make 
her  home  thenceforward  with  her  mother  at 
Nohant.  But  they  were  both  different  from 
other  people  and  though  Solange  more  than 
once  made  the  suggestion,  George  Sand  raised 
objections.  Solange,  she  said,  would  "  catch 
cold "  at  Nohant ;  her  desire  to  be  near  the 
little  one's  grave  was  morbid.  Moreover — 

"You  know  that  I  have  other  reasons  for 
not  wishing  you  to  return  here.  You  would 
cause  me  great  annoyance  if  you  insisted  upon 
visiting  the  neighbourhood  at  the  present  time. 
I  hope  it  will  not  be  your  pleasure  to  inflict 
this  pain  upon  me,  and  I  cannot  believe  that 
it  will." 

Those  were  her  views  in  1855,  and  we  find 
her  repeating  them  in  1861.  No  biographer 
can  suggest  a  better  reason  than  a  fear  that 
Solange  would  interrupt  her  in  the  task  of 
"  making  copy  for  Buloz";  and  there  may 
well  have  been  grounds  for  that  apprehension. 
Solange  was  as  violent  as  the  whirlwind,  and 
as  irresponsible.  But  she  was  wounded  by 
the  tone  her  mother  took ;  and  though  there 
was  no  open  quarrel,  she  and  her  mother 
thereafter  mainly  went  separate  ways. 

To  relate  the  daughter's  subsequent  adven- 
tures would  require  a  separate  volume ;  and 

329 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

there  are,  in  fact,  in  French,  two  volumes l  devoted 
to  the  subject.  Here  we  can  only  note  that  the 
daughter's  career  was,  to  a  great  extent,  a 
replica  of  the  mother's,  and  of  a  nature  to 
remind  the  mother  of  the  proverb  about  curses 
coming  home  to  roost. 

Literature  and  love-making  are  commingled 
in  the  one  career  as  in  the  other,  albeit  in 
different  proportions.  In  the  one  career  as 
in  the  other  there  was  a  honeymoon  in  Italy, 
whither  Solange  repaired  as  the  companion 
of  an  Italian  count.  In  the  second  career 
as  in  the  first  appears  Sainte-Beuve,  that  lay 
confessor,  giving  paternal  advice.  His  study 
strikes  Solange  as  "something  midway  between 
a  parsonage  and  a  library,"  and  she  remarks 
that  his  housemaid  is  pretty.  "  For  such  a 
learned  man —  is  her  comment  :  an  example 
of  the  figure  of  speech  which  grammarians  call 
aposiopesis.  And  George  Sand  replies :  "I 
hope  he  will  have  as  much  influence  on  your 
life  as  he  had,  on  certain  occasions,  on  mine." 
One  wonders  whether,  when  she  wrote  that, 
she  remembered  in  what  circumstances  Sainte- 
Beuve  had  introduced  her  to  Merim^e. 

Next,  if  we  may  allow  ourselves  to  follow 
Solange  a  step  farther,  we  find  her,  at  the 
height  of  her  youth  and  beauty,  presiding  over 
a  literary  salon  in  the  Rue  Taitbout — a  salon 

1  Lafille  de  George  Sand  by  Georges  d'Heylli,  and  George  Sand 
et  safille  by  Samuel  Rocheblave. 

330 


Solange  and  Her  Salon 

numbering  among  its  guests  J.  -  J.  Weiss,  and 
Henri  Fouquier,  and  Herve*,  and  Gambetta. 
Without  visible  means  of  subsistence,  she  was 
nevertheless  living  luxuriously,  and  seems,  for 
some  years,  to  have  been  estranged  from  her 
mother  in  consequence.  The  inferences  to  be 
drawn  from  her  manner  of  life  were  obvious, 
and  we  must  assume  George  Sand  to  have 
drawn  them.  Her  own  code,  in  the  past,  had 
been  lax,  but  never  so  lax  as  that.  She,  at 
least,  in  love  as  in  life,  had  always  paid  her 
way  by  making  copy  for  Buloz.  Whereas  her 

daughter 

But  this  is  not  the  life  of  Solange.  We  must 
return  to  George  Sand  and  try  to  make  our- 
selves a  picture  of  the  life  she  was  living 
during  the  period  thus  reviewed  with  the  rest 
of  her  family  at  Nohant. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

George  Sand  grows  old  with  dignity — Her  heart  a  cemetery — The 
account  which  she  gave  of  herself  to  Louis  d'Ulbach — And 
to  Flaubert  —  A  conversation  at  the  Magny  dinner  —  Elle  et 
Lui — Correspondence  with  Buloz — His  advice  to  "tone 
down"  that  work  —  Lui  et  Elle — George  Sand's  rejoinder  — 
She  thinks  of  publishing  Musset's  letters  —  Sainte-Beuve's 
advice — Decision  that  they  shall  not  be  published  until  after 
her  death. 

WE  have  only  to  draw  the  picture  ;  no  incidents 
remain  to  be  related,  and,  literary  work  apart, 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century  of  George  Sand's 
life  can  be  outlined  in  a  few  phrases. 

Most  of  her  time  was  passed  iii  the  inter- 
minable task  of  "  making  copy  for  Buloz,"  or 
in  making  copy  for  other  editors  when  her 
relations  with  Buloz  were  strained.  Writing 
never  became  an  effort  to  her,  even  when  she 
only  wrote  for  money,  and  there  never  came 
a  time  when  she  did  not  need  the  money.  If 
her  gains  were  considerable,  so  also  were  her 
expenses ;  and  her  earnings,  after  all,  were 
but  moderate,  judged  by  modern  standards, 
or  compared  with  those  of  some  of  her  con- 
temporaries :  Victor  Hugo,  for  instance,  or 
the  elder  Dumas,  or  Eugene  Sue.  Towards 
the  end  she  computed  that  she  had  altogether 

332 


Impecuniosity 

earned  about  ,£40,000  with  her  pen — no 
inordinate  sum  when  we  consider  how  great 
was  her  celebrity  and  how  long  it  lasted — and 
none  of  it  was  saved  or  invested.  To  the 
last,  therefore,  she  continued  to  produce  two 
novels  nearly  every  year,  as  well  as  occasional 
plays  and  a  number  of  newspaper  articles. 
Her  impecuniosity  was,  indeed,  at  times  so 
notorious  that  we  find  Delacroix,  who  knew 
her  well,  noting  in  his  Journal : — 

"Gryzmala  maintained,  at  dinner,  that 
Madame  Sand  had  taken  money  from  Meyer- 
beer for  the  eulogistic  articles  which  she 
wrote  about  him.  I  cannot  believe  it,  and 
I  protested.  The  poor  woman  is  very  badly 
in  need  of  money.  She  writes  too  much,  and 
writes  for  money.  But  that  she  should  come 
down  to  the  level  of  such  mercenary  hacks ! 
No,  that  is  incredible." 

Decidedly  it  is  incredible.  Whatever  George 
Sand's  faults,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
her  pen  was  ever  venal ;  and  it  would  appear 
from  a  comparison  of  dates  that  she  escaped 
from  the  particular  monetary  embarrassments  to 
which  Delacroix  refers  by  writing  the  Histoire 
de  ma  Vie.  But  the  fact  remains  that  she  was 
never  rich,  and  seldom  free  from  anxiety,  and 
always  regarded  leisure  as  a  luxury  beyond  her 
means.  The  letters  tell  us  sometimes  of  petty 

333 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

economies — a  decision,  for  example,  to  go  without 
a  new  winter  coat.  But  serious  economies  would 
only  have  been  possible  if  she  had  altered  her 
style  of  living,  and  this  she  never  did.  She  was 
not  extravagant,  but  she  was  hospitable ;  and  her 
income  was  just,  with  persistent  effort,  made  to 
keep  pace  with  her  expenditure. 

Her  headquarters  were  at  Nohant ;  and  she 
was  nearly  always  there.  Once  she  visited  Italy  ; 
once,  when  convalescent  from  typhoid  fever,  she 
wintered  on  the  Riviera ;  sometimes  she  spent 
the  summer  months  in  watering-places  on  the 
coast  of  Brittany  ;  for  a  little  while  she  had  a  pied- 
a-terre  at  Palaiseau,  near  Paris  ;  theatrical  business 
brought  her  to  Paris  at  intervals  ;  during  the 
Franco-German  War  she  left  her  home  to  escape, 
not  from  the  Prussians,  but  from  an  epidemic  of 
smallpox.  But,  on  the  whole,  she  travelled  little 
—  less  and  less  as  the  years  advanced.  Her 
son  had  married  Lina  Calmatta,  the  daughter  of 
the  Italian  engraver.  He,  and  his  wife  and 
family,  lived  with  her  ;  and  she  delighted  in  the 
society  of  her  grandchildren,  and  learnt  to  write 
with  one  baby  sitting  on  her  knee  and  another 
sprawling  at  her  feet.  In  fine,  we  may  say  that 
she  grew  old  with  dignity. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  the  intelligent  to  be  able 
to  do  this,  even  after  a  riotous  and  misspent  youth. 
It  may  not  be  a  privilege  of  which  they  always 
avail  themselves,  but  it  is  theirs.  Stupid  people, 
if  they  are  dissolute  when  they  are  young,  are 

334 


Growing  Old  with  Dignity 

sure  to  become  pitiably  grotesque  when  they 
grow  old.  They  have  no  other  resources  than 
the  misconduct  of  which  they  have  ceased  to  be 
capable — no  potentialities,  no  reserve  of  dignity, 
to  fall  back  upon.  George  Sand's  frivolous, 
empty  -  headed  mother  -  -  the  bird  fancier's 
daughter,  and  the  camp  follower  of  the  Army 
of  Italy — is  one  shocking  example  of  the  truth 
of  the  saying ;  so  is  her  drunken  brother — that 
graceless,  grey-headed  reprobate,  Hippolyte 
Chatiron.  But  she  herself  had  art,  and  intellect, 
and  sentiment  to  fortify  her. 

There  are  points  of  view  from  which  her 
conduct,  in  her  young  days,  had  hardly  been 
morally  distinguishable  from  her  mother's.  The 
Merime'e  episode,  the  Pagello  episode,  the 
Mallefille  episode  —  to  cite  but  these  —  lacked 
romantic  no  less  than  ethical  warrant.  There 
are  critics  who,  on  the  strength  of  these  episodes, 
have  summed  up  George  Sand's  character  by 
speaking  of  her  as  "  une  fille."  Perhaps.  The 
answer  to  the  charge  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
details  of  the  episodes  themselves.  The  true 
defence  is  that  George  Sand  was  able  to  live 
down  such  a  past  as  hers  without  adopting  a 
penitential  tone.  The  young  generation,  grow- 
ing up  around  her,  took  her  amours  seriously,  as 
matters  of  historical  importance,  respecting  her 
as  the  incarnation  of  the  great  ideas  of  the 
Romantic  Movement ;  and  she,  calmly,  and  as 
though  the  matter  were  above  and  beyond 

335 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

argument,  took  the  same  view  of  herself,  though 
her  method  of  expressing  it  varied  according 
to  her  auditor. 

M.  Louis  d'Ulbach,  wishing  to  write  a 
personal  article  about  her  for  a  newspaper,  asked 
her  for  some  information  about  herself,  and  to 
him  she  wrote  : — 

"  I  am  only  a  worthy  woman  who  has  been 
credited  with  altogether  fantastic  ferocities  of 
character.  The  charge  has  been  brought  against 
me  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  love  with 
passion.  It  seems  to  me  that  my  life  has  been 
full  of  tenderness,  and  that  people  might  very 
well  be  satisfied  with  that.  At  present,  thank 
God,  nothing  else  is  asked  from  me,  and  those 
who  are  good  enough  to  love  me  in  spite  of  the 
lack  of  distinction  in  my  life  and  my  intelligence 
do  not  complain  of  me." 

M.  Caro,  the  Academician,  who  afterwards 
wrote  a  book  about  her,  visited  her  at  Nohant ; 
and  her  confession  to  him  was  on  the  same  lines 
as  her  confession  to  Flaubert. 

"  The  person  called  George  Sand  picks  flowers, 
arranges  her  botanical  specimens,  stitches  dresses 
for  her  young  people  and  costumes  for  the 
marionettes,  reads  music,  and,  above  all,  spends 
hours  and  hours  with  her  grandchildren.  .  .  . 
Things  have  not  always  been  like  that.  Once 
she  was  so  silly  as  to  be  young ;  but,  as  she 

336 


"  My  Heart  is  a  Cemetery'' 

has  done  no  harm  to  anyone,  and  experienced 
no  evil  passions,  and  never  lived  for  vanity,  she 
enjoys  the  happiness  of  a  mind  at  ease,  and  the 
capacity  of  finding  amusement  in  everything." 

That  was  her  apologetic  manner  with  persons 
of  whose  sympathy  she  could  not  be  sure ;  and 
M.  Caro  was  only  sympathetic  within  limits,  as 
his  book  was  presently  to  demonstrate.  To 
other  audiences  George  Sand  spoke  in  another 
style.  "  My  heart  is  a  cemetery,"  was  then  the 
leit-motif-,  and  she  certainly  would  not  have  been 
disconcerted  if  she  had  heard  Jules  Sandeau's 
retort  that  it  was  a  necropolis.  In  these  matters, 
at  any  rate,  she  had  no  sense  of  humour ;  and 
she  would  probably  have  wished  that  she  had 
herself,  in  the  first  instance,  employed  the  more 
sonorous  word.  Cemetery  or  necropolis — what 
difference  did  it  make,  so  long  as  it  was  her 
melancholy  privilege  to  meditate  among  the 
tombs  ? 

Yet,  though  the  meditations  may  have  been 
melancholy  —  as  all  meditations  in  which  we 
mourn  our  dead  youth  as  well  as  our  dead  loves 
are  bound  to  be — George  Sand  seemed  to  glory 
in  them ;  and  we  have  an  interesting  instance 
of  her  doing  so  in  the  Souvenirs  of  Madame 
Juliette  Adam. 

It  was  at  a  dinner  party  at  which,  besides  the 
two  ladies,  there  were  present  Flaubert,  Dumas 
fils,  and  Jules  and  Edmond  de  Goncourt ;  and 
Y  337 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

the  conversation  turned  upon  love  in  its  relation 
to  the  novelist's  art.  Was  it  necessary  to  have 
loved  in  order  to  be  a  great  writer  of  fiction  ? 
Did  not  the  mere  practice  of  so  analytical  an  art 
deprive  the  writer  of  the  capacity  for  passion  ? 
Madame  Adam  thus  reports  the  talk  : — 

"It  is  a  curious  idea  to  state  in  my  presence 
that  one  is  debarred  from  love  because  one  is  a 
writer,"  added  George  Sand,  laughing. 

"Still  there  is  truth  in  the  statement,"  said 
Edmond  de  Goncourt. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it,"  retorted  George  Sand. 
"For  the  principal  reproach  that  can  be  brought 
against  women  writers  is  precisely  that  they  have 
loved  too  much.  My  proof  of  that  ?  I  find  it  in 
my  heart." 

"You — you  have  never  loved  anything  except 
the  idea  that  you  were  evolving  of  the  hero  of 
one  of  your  future  books,  marionettes,  as  it  were, 
that  you  have  dressed  up  to  rehearse  your  piece," 
said  Dumas.  "  Surely  you  don't  call  that 
loving ! " 

"Come  now,"  threw  in  Flaubert.  "We  four 
important  writers,  are  we  grands  amoureux  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  care,"  rejoined 
George  Sand;  "but  it  is  silly  to  say — take  only 
the  latest  instances  —  that  Madame  de  Stael, 
Madame  d'Agoult,  Madame  de  Girardin,  and  I 
have  not  been  grandes  amoureuses.  On  the 
contrary,  I  think  that  it  would  now  be  difficult  to 

338 


Eugene  de  Mirecourt 

prove  that  a  pretty  woman  who  writes  may  have 
plenty  of  talent  and  yet  remain  a  simple,  loving, 
and  faithfjil  wife." 

"It  would  be  a  good  subject  for  an  essay,"  said 
Jules  de  Goncourt. 

The  note  of  self-satisfaction  rings  loudly  and 
clearly  there.  "  Militavi  non  sine  gloria"  might 
be  the  speaker's  motto.  It  might  also  have  been 
George  Sand's  motto  when  she  sat  down  to  write 
Elle  et  Lui. 

She  had  already  toyed  with  the  theme  at 
the  time  when  Chopin  was  living  with  her. 
There  exists  a  brief  fragment  of  a  romance  from 
her  pen,  begun  apparently  in  1842,  but  never 
finished,  describing  a  journey  to  Venice  with  a 
certain  Theodore,  and  ending  with  the  exclamation, 
"  Alas  I  poor  Theodore!  You  could  not  foresee." 
Perhaps  it  was  meant  as  a  reply  to  Musset's 
Histoire  dun  merle  blanc ;  but  that  is  mere 
conjecture,  and  the  fragment  is  too  brief  to  call 
for  any  sort  of  discussion. 

In  1854  we  find  the  subject  cropping  up  again. 
Jacquot,  the  scurrilous  scandalmonger  who  signed 
himself  "  Eugene  de  Mirecourt,"  had  written  some- 
thing which  seemed  to  call  for  a  reply ;  and 
the  rejoinder  was  printed  in  Alexandre  Dumas' 
newspaper,  Le  Mousquetaire.  The  most  striking 
passage  in  it  is  this  : — 

"You   say/ that,  after  the  journey  to    Italy,   I 
339 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

have  never  seen  M.  de  Musset  again.  You  are 
mistaken.  I  have  met  him  frequently,  and 
never  without  shaking  hands  with  him.  I 
rejoice  in  the  satisfaction  of  being  able  to  assure 
you  that  I  have  never  in  my  life  borne  malice 
against  anyone,  just  as  I  have  never  given 
anyone — not  even  my  husband,  M.  Dudevant— 
good  grounds  for  bearing  any  lasting  malice 
against  me." 

That  was  while  Musset  was  still  alive.  In 
1858,  however,  Musset  was  dead;  and  George 
Sand  had  lately  composed  a  difference  of  some 
standing  with  Buloz,  who  had  so  long  been 
acquainted  with  rather  more  than  the  bare  out- 
line of  her  great  love  affair.  She  proposed  to 
write  the  story  for  him  in  full  in  the  form  of  a 
romance ;  and  Buloz  agreed,  not  only  thac  the 
story  was  one  which  ought  to  be  written,  but 
also  that  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  was 
the  organ  in  which  it  ought  to  appear.  It  was 
as  contributors  to  the  Revue  that  the  lovers 
had  first  met.  Both  of  them  had  repeatedly 
made  copy  for  Buloz  out  of  their  disagreements. 
Musset  had  long  since  given  the  readers  of  the 
Revue  his  version  of  the  story  in  his  Confession 
dun  Enfant  du  Siecle.  It  was  the  right  and 
proper  and  dramatic  thing  that  the  case  for  the 
defence  should  be  addressed  to  the  same  audience 
from  the  same  rostrum.  So  he  argued,  and 
George  Sand  retired  to  the  cemetery  for  a 

340 


Elle  et  Lui 

month,  and  composed  the  most  famous  of  all  her 
meditations  among  the  tombs. 

We  will  not  stop  to  analyse  the  work.  To 
do  so  would  be  to  re-tell  a  story  that  has  been 
already  told,  and  re-examine  pleas  that  have 
already  been  sifted.  All  that  we  have  to  note 
is  that  the  tone  is  one  not  of  apology  or  regret 
but  of  self-satisfaction,  and  that  the  self-satis- 
faction would  have  been  still  more  pronounced 
if  Buloz  had  not  intervened  with  good  advice. 
His  letter,  already  quoted  in  part,  may  here  be 
quoted  at  length  : — 

"  MY  DEAR  GEORGE, — I  have  read  your 
biographical  romance.  For  myself,  knowing 
the  facts,  and  having  always  taken  your  part 
against  Alfred,  I  think  you  have  kept  within  the 
limits  of  truth  and  moderation  in  the  portrait 
which  you  have  drawn. 

"  But  the  public,  not  knowing  all  that  I  know, 
will  find  you  rather  severe.  And  perhaps  there 
are  some  things  which  one  should  not  mention 
when  one  is  speaking  of  a  person  whom  one  has 
loved — I  refer  to  pecuniary  matters. 

"  I  think,  then,  that  when  you  come  to  look 
over  the  proofs,  you  will  do  well,  for  your  own 
sake,  to  soften  down  certain  passages,  to  make 
more  allowances  for  the  artist,  and  to  represent 
Th^rese  as  less  perfect.  The  attribute  of 
sanctity,  if  I  may  say  so,  is  too  often  attributed 
to  Th^rese.  You  must  weigh  your  words  and 

34i 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

be  moderate,  just  as  if  Alfred  were  present  and 
could  reply. 

"  I  have  remarked,  too,  with  pleasure,  in  read- 
ing the  romance,  that  you  had  no  intention  of 
suggesting — and,  save  in  a  few  expressions  and 
a  few  brief  passages,  did  not  suggest — impressions 
unfavourable  to  the  author.  It  is  a  work  of  an 
elevated  character — a  fine  picture  of  the  man  of 
genius  in  his  life-and-death  struggle  with  vice 
(in  which  alone  the  work  might  seem  damaging 
to  our  friend) — and  not  a  work  of  revenge. 

"  To  sum  up :  when  certain  passages  have 
been  modified  or  suppressed,  the  book  will 
perhaps  be  one  of  your  finest  compositions.  It 
is  clear  that  you  were  anxious  to  repudiate 
certain  accusations  which  you  have  a  perfect 
right  to  repudiate  because  they  are  false — for 
Alfred  would  have  repudiated  them  himself.  But 
you  must  try  to  repudiate  them  without  assailing 
his  memory  (as  I  am  pleased  to  see  that  it  was 
your  intention  to  do)  by  altering  certain  phrases 
and  certain  sentences  at  which  offence  might  be 
taken.  Assuredly  you  did  not  kill  the  poet,  as 
some  have  said.  You  furnished  him  with  his 
finest  inspirations.  What  he  wrote  did  not 
always  spare  you  ;  but  there  was  nothing  for  the 
public  to  lay  hold  upon,  whereas  it  will  have  no 
difficulty  whatever  in  putting  the  dots  on  the  i's 
in  your  novel.  ..." 

The  advice   here  given  was  followed,  and  so 
342 


Lui  et  Elle 

was  the  advice  conveyed  in  a  later  letter  to  "  tone 
down  the  scenes  in  which  The*rese  passes  so 
easily  from  the  embraces  of  Laurent  to  those  of 
Palmer."  Buloz  opined  that  such  scenes  would 
shock  the  general  public  a  good  deal  more  than 
they  shocked  him,  and  George  Sand  was  not  too 
proud  to  defer  to  his  judgment.  None  the  less, 
there  were  anonymous  letters  of  protest,  followed 
by  an  outburst  of  wrath  on  the  part  of  the  Musset 
family.  We  presently  find  Buloz  warning  the 
author  that  she  is  accused  of  having  incorporated 
in  Elle  et  Lui  the  actual  text  of  some  of 
Musset's  letters,  and  that  Paul  de  Musset  is 
preparing  a  biography  of  his  brother  in  which 
will  appear  some  of  Tattet's  letters,  designed  to 
turn  the  tables  on  her,  and  put  her  to  confusion. 

Paul  de  Musset  carried  out  his  threat  to  the 
best  of  his  ability  by  writing  Lui  et  Elle — a 
pamphlet  in  intention  though  a  romance  in  form. 
Such  use  as  seemed  legitimate  has  been  made 
of  its  contents  in  the  course  of  the  narrative, 
and  there  is  no  need  to  go  over  the  ground  again. 
Nor  need  we  concern  ourselves  with  Lui,  the 
romance  contributed  to  the  discussion  by  Madame 
Louise  Colet,  a  woman  novelist  who  had  loved 
Musset,  some  time  after  his  separation  from 
George  Sand.  The  allegations,  however,  seemed 
to  call  for  a  reply  ;  and  George  Sand  delivered 
her  reply  in  the  preface  of  another  novel,  Jean 
de  la  Roche.  The  essential  passage  is  as 
follows  : — 

343 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

"  We  predict,  for  our  part,  that  the  illustrious 
dead  will,  at  the  opportune  moment,  arise 
indignant  from  his  grave.  He  will  claim  to 
resume  possession  of  his  own  thoughts  and  his 
true  feelings.  He  will  assert  the  right  himself 
to  make  the  proud  confession  of  his  sufferings, 
and  to  uplift  his  voice  to  heaven,  uttering  those 
glorious  cries  of  truth  and  justice  which  constitute 
the  best  portion  of  his  soul  and  the  most  intense 
phase  of  his  life.  This  time  we  shall  not  have 
to  do  with  a  romance,  or  a  pamphlet,  or  a 
betrayal.  We  shall  have  a  monument  written 
by  his  own  hands  and  consecrated  to  his  memory 
by  the  hands  of  those  who  love  him  still.  The 
monument  will  be  erected  when  those  who  insult 
him  have  compromised  themselves  sufficiently. 
To  let  them  go  their  way  is  the  only  punishment 
that  one  deigns  to  inflict  upon  them.  So  let 
them  blaspheme  and  pass." 

The  significance  of  this  is  clear.  It  meant  that 
George  Sand  proposed  to  publish  the  letters.  She 
went  so  far  as  to  pack  them  up  and  send  them 
to  Sainte-Beuve,  with  a  request  for  his  advice ; 
but  the  critic  discouraged  the  idea  of  printing 
them.  As  literature,  he  thought,  they  belonged 
to  an  extinct  period, — "  elles  sentaient  trop  leur 
1830," — and,  for  the  rest,  the  muddy  waters  of 
Camerina  had  been  stirred  sufficiently.  And, 
once  more,  George  Sand  deferred  to  wise  counsel, 
and  decided  that  the  letters  should  not  be 

344 


Magnanimity 

published  until  after  her  death.  They  did  not, 
in  fact,  appear  until  many  years  after  her  death ; 
and  her  final  words  upon  the  subject  were  as 
follows  : — 

"The  dirty  charges  in  the  accusation  levelled 
at  me,  and  the  letters  themselves,  prove  one 
thing  only  :  that  behind  the  two  romances — La 
Confession  dun  Enfant  du  Siecle  and  Elle  et  Lui 
—there  is  a  true  story  emphasising  the  madness 
of  the  one  and  the  affection  of  the  other  (the 
madness  of  both,  if  you  prefer),  but  nothing  odious 
or  treacherous — nothing  that  leaves  a  stain  upon 
hearts  that  were  sincere. 

"In  later  days,  owing  to  debauchery,  bad 
advice,  bad  companions,  and  increasing  madness, 
the  poet  became  embittered.  He  continued  to 
be  jealous,  and  he  wanted  to  wound.  But  I  think 
that  many  lies  have  been  put  into  his  mouth,  and 
that  he  is  less  guilty  than  his  friends  have  made 
him  appear. 

"  Peace  and  forgiveness  :  that  is  the  conclusion 
of  the  matter.  But,  in  the  future,  a  ray  of  light 
to  illuminate  the  story  !  " 

And  thus,  claiming  magnanimity  in  addition 
to  all  her  other  virtues,  George  Sand  left  the 
subject,  and  returned  to  her  grandchildren  and  her 
friends,  and  to  the  double  task  of  making  copy  and 
growing  old  with  dignity. 


345 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

George  Sand's  friends  and  visitors — Thdophile  Gautier  at  Nohant 
— "Ragging"  Flaubert  —  Stories  told  by  M.  Henri  Amic  — 
Thiers'  attempt  to  kiss  George  Sand  —  Jane  Essler  —  Sarah 
Bernhardt — Why  the  society  of  actresses  should  be  avoided — 
M.  Emile  Aucante  on  George  Sand's  manner  of  life  and 
methods  of  work. 

SAINTE-BEUVE  was  the  only  one  of  the  writers 
of  her  own  generation — the  writers  who  made 
their  debuts  in  the  early  days  of  the  Romantic 
Movement  —  whom  we  find  numbered  among 
George  Sand's  friends  in  her  later  years. 

Even  with  him  she  was  by  no  meanc  so  intimate 
as  she  once  had  been  ;  and  death  and  division 
had  sent  the  others  very  divers  ways.  Balzac 
was  dead ;  Victor  Hugo  was  in  exile ;  the  elder 
Dumas  had  become  disreputable  ;  Merimee  was 
a  courtier,  much  in  request  at  the  Palace  of 
Compiegne,  and  the  reasons  were  obvious  why 
she  was  unlikely  to  cultivate  his  society  or  that 
of  Sandeau.  Yet  solitude — though  it  were  the 
mitigated  solitude  of  the  family  circle  —  was 
intolerable  to  her.  She  must  always  have  friends 
about  her ;  and  she  made  many  new  friends 
among  the  more  distinguished  of  her  juniors : 
Dumas  fils,  The"ophile  Gautier,  Turgueneff,  the 

346 


Theophile  Gautier 

brothers  de  Goncourt,  and  Flaubert.  She  always 
dined  with  some  of  them  at  the  restaurant  Magny 
when  she  was  in  Paris  ;  and  she  generally  had 
a  house  party  when  she  was  at  Nohant. 

Permanently  in  residence  at  Nohant  there 
were,  in  addition  to  her  son  and  his  family, 
Manceau  the  factotum,  Emile  Aucante,  her 
secretary  and  man  of  business,  and  Eugene 
Lambert,  the  painter.  Other  guests  were 
always  coming  and  going.  With  most  of  them, 
when  they  were  absent,  she  kept  up  a  more 
or  less  regular  correspondence ;  and  even  young 
men  of  promising  literary  talent  who  were  intro- 
duced, or  who  introduced  themselves,  were  often 
permitted  to  join  the  circle  of  her  intimates. 
Matthew  Arnold  was  one  of  those  who  thus 
presented  themselves ;  but  his  account  of  his 
visit  lacks  picturesque  detail.  For  that  we  must 
go  to  the  French  writers. 

Thdophile  Gautier  may  be  our  first  witness, 
and  his  deposition  may  be  taken  from  the 
Goncourt  Diary.  He  was  asked,  on  his  return 
from  Nohant,  how  he  had  enjoyed  himself  there, 
and  he  replied  :— 

"  It  was  about  as  amusing  as  a  convent  of 
Moravian  brothers.  Marechal  the  painter  and 
Dumas  fils  were  there.  Lunch  is  at  ten. 
Madame  Sand  comes  down  with  the  air  of  a 
somnambulist,  and  remains  half  asleep  all  through 
the  meal.  After  lunch  we  all  go  out  in  the 

347 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

garden  and  play  bowls,  and  that  wakes  her  up 
a  little.  At  three  Madame  Sand  goes  upstairs 
to  make  copy  till  six.  After  dinner  she  plays 
Patience,  without  speaking  a  word,  until  midnight. 
On  the  second  day  I  said  that,  unless  they  talked 
literature,  I  should  go  home  again.  Literature ! 
The  word  seemed  to  recall  them  from  another 
world.  There  is  only  one  thing  that  interests 
them  all,  and  that  is  mineralogy.  Everybody 
has  his  geological  hammer,  and  never  goes  out 
without  it.  All  the  same,  Manceau  has  fixed  up 
Nohant  very  conveniently  for  copy-making.  In 
whatever  room  she  sits  down,  there  immediately 
rise  up  in  front  of  her,  pens,  blue  ink,  cigarette 
papers,  Turkish  tobacco,  and  copy  paper.  And 
the  quantity  that  she  uses !  Copy-making  is  a 
function  with  Madame  Sand.  For  the  rest,  one 
is  made  very  comfortable  in  her  house.  The 
service,  for  example,  is  conducted  in  silence.  In 
the  corridor  there  is  a  letter-box  with  two  com- 
partments. One  of  them  is  for  letters  to  be 
posted ;  the  other  for  letters  directed  to  the 
inmates  of  the  house.  Happening  to  need  a 
comb,  I  wrote,  '  M.  Gautier,  such  a  room,'  and 
my  request.  On  the  following  day,  at  six 
o'clock,  I  was  presented  with  thirty  combs  to 
choose  from."1 


1  A  similar  story  is  told  by  Charles  Edmond,  to  whom  George 
Sand  writes  thus  :  "  We  have  bought  you  an  enormous  wash- 
hand  basin,  Solange  having  told  me  that  you  thought  yours  was 
too  small.  Lina  has  set  herself  in  motion,  and  has  had  an 

348 


Edmond  Plauchut 

Gautier  writes,  of  course,  as  a  boulevardier 
who  has  reluctantly  quitted  his  favourite  haunts 
to  take  part  in  a  mode  of  life  for  which  nature 
has  not  fitted  him.  Hence  the  piquancy,  almost 
of  malice,  in  his  criticism.  But  the  story  of  his 
sojourn  at  Nohant  is  not  less  piquant  in  the  pages 
of  M.  Edmond  Plauchut.  We  read  there  that  he 
mistook  George  Sahd's  somnolence  for  frigidity, 
and  went  so  far  as  to  pack  his  traps,  announcing 
his  intention  of  departing  early  in  the  morning, 
without  saying  good-bye,  because  he  had  been 
received  as  if  he  were  an  unwelcome  guest. 
Dumas,  however,  intervened,  led  "  The"o "  down 
to  his  hostess's  study,  and  explained  the  situation 
boisterously,  with  the  result  that  the  three  of 
them  remained  talking  gaily  together  until  day- 
light. 

Nor  was  the  life  always  so  dull,  or  the  hostess 
always  so  lacking  in  animation,  as  Gautier's  ex- 
periences might  suggest.  There  were  the  amateur 
dramatic  performances  of  which  enough  has  already 
been  said,  and  there  were  the  antics  of  Maurice 
Sand's  marionettes,  though  these  apparently  palled 
upon  some  of  the  guests,  and  M.  Caro  cries  out 
against  George  Sand's  conviction  that  other  people 
found  them  as  amusing  as  she  did.  Reading 
aloud,  again,  was  a  frequent  pastime.  Dumas 

immense  number  of  basins  sent  here  from  all  the  country  round. 
The  Berry  people,  who  have  little  use  for  such  articles,  opened 
their  mouths  in  astonishment  and  asked  if  we  wanted  them  for 
washing  the  clothes  in." 

349 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

read  L?  affaire  Clemenceau^  Turgueneff  read 
passages  from  his  forthcoming  works.  George 
Sand  herself  did  the  same  ;  and  it  was  agreed 
that  the  true  note  of  pathos  must  indeed  have 
been  struck  when  one  of  the  grandchildren  wept 
over  the  death  of  an  elephant.  Moreover,  though 
the  early  rowdiness  had  ceased,  "ragging"  was 
not  altogether  unknown.  M.  Plauchut  describes 
such  an  episode,  in  which  we  find  Flaubert 
figuring. 

"One  day,  when  Flaubert  was  more  furious 
than  usual  against  his  publishers,  or  against  some 
bourgeois  or  other,  Maurice  Sand,  seeing  that 
his  mother  was  tired  of  the  tirade,  proposed  that 
I  and  his  daughters  should  join  him  in  organising 
a  '  rag '  in  the  dining-room  adjoining  the  apart- 
ment in  which  the  assailant  of  the  bourgeois  was 
holding  forth.  As  soon  as  he  heard  the  first 
clatter  of  the  tongs,  Flaubert  bounded  towards  us 
in  a  state  of  boiling  indignation,  exclaiming  that 
he  could  not  hear  himself  speak,  and  that  we 
were  behaving  like  low  comedians.  Madame 
Sand,  who  followed  him,  had,  on  her  part,  picked 
up  the  coal  shovel,  and  allied  herself  with  the 
rioters  in  the  most  spirited  style.  Flaubert  fled 
like  a  man  in  terror  of  assassination,  but  quickly 
came  back,  dressed  up  as  an  Andalusian  woman, 
and  dancing  the  most  disorderly  of  fandangoes." 

1  George  Sand  helped  him  with  it.     He,  in  return,  helped  her  to 
construct  Le  Marquis  de  Villemer. 

350 


Henri  Amic 

Another  of  the  friends  of  the  later  period  was 
M.  Henri  Amic,  a  young  man  of  literary  ambitions 
who  introduced  himself  with  a  letter  of  homage. 
His  letter  brought  him  an  invitation  to  call  at 
Nohant,  and  afterwards  to  stay  there.  George 
Sand  gave  him  much  good  advice  about  his  work, 
and  about  other  matters  also.  She  wrote  him  a 
good  many  letters  which  have  been  published ; 
and  he  saw  her  frequently  in  Paris  as  well  as  in 
the  country.  He  was  one  of  those  who  really 
enjoyed  the  marionettes,  and,  unlike  Theophile 
Gautier,  he  managed  to  interest  himself  in  the 
mineralogy.  We  owe  to  him  a  delightful  story 
of  George  Sand's  objections  to  the  embraces  of 
a  statesman. 

"  I  had  been  invited  to  dine  with  some  dis- 
tinguished people  who  were  very  anxious  to 
receive  me,  and  it  had  been  quite  impossible  for 
me  to  refuse.  But  I  had  a  horror  of  what  is 
called  Society,  and  had  made  my  hostess  promise 
that  the  party  should  be  a  small  one.  So  far  as 
the  dinner  went,  this  programme  was  observed ; 
but,  after  dinner,  when  we  adjourned  to  the 
drawing-room,  there  was  a  crush.  I  said  nothing, 
but  I  drew  Emmanuel  Arago  aside  into  a  sort  of 
vestibule,  on  the  pretext  that  I  had  something  to 
tell  him,  and  then  asked  him  to  get  me  my  cloak. 
I  was  quietly  waiting  for  him  when  up  came  little 
Thiers.  He  immediately  began  to  speak  to  me 
with  a  good  deal  of  empressement,  and  I  replied 

35i 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

to  him  as  best  I  could.  But  all  of  a  sudden — I 
have  never  known  why — the  fancy  seized  him  to 
kiss  me.  I  declined,  as  you  can  well  understand  ; 
and  he  seemed  profoundly  astonished,  and  looked 
at  me  out  of  his  funny  little  eyes,  like  a  man 
quite  taken  aback.  When  Emmanuel  Arago 
returned,  I  began  to  laugh  heartily;  but  poor  little 
Thiers  did  not  laugh.  He  looked  furiously  angry, 
and  quite  disconcerted.  Monsieur  Thiers  a  Don 
Juan !  I  am  sure  you  cannot  picture  that,  my 
young  friend.  You  see  what  changes  time  can 
work  in  a  man." 

To  M.  Amic  also  we  owe  our  knowledge  of 
George  Sand's  later  estimate  of  the  theatre,  and 
especially  of  actresses.  Actresses,  she  warned 
her  young  friend,  as  Madame  de  Vigny  had 
vainly  warned  her  son,  were  very  dangerous 
companions  —  infinitely  more  treacherous  and 
deceitful  than  other  women.  It  was  not  only 
on  the  boards  that  they  played  a  part,  and  pre- 
tended. Did  he  want  an  example  ?  Then  she 
would  tell  him  about  Jane  Essler,  who  had  been 
so  successful  in  one  of  the  roles  of  her  Beaux 
Messieurs  de  Bois-Dord. 

"She  lived  for  several  years  with  a  man  of 
letters  who  was  a  friend  of  mine.  One  fine  day 
she  announced  without  rhyme  or  reason  that 
she  was  going  to  leave  him.  The  poor  fellow 
worshipped  her.  He  could  not  bear  the  idea 

352 


Jane  Essler  and  Sarah   Bernhardt 

of  the  separation,  and  he  implored  me  to  speak 
to  Jane  Essler.  I  did  as  he  asked,  and  returned, 
heartbroken,  from  the  interview.  To  all  my 
entreaties  this  woman  coldly  replied,  '  He 
gives  me  as  much  money  as  he  can,  but  he  is 
not  rich  enough  for  me.  I  am  as  fond  of  him 
as  I  am  of  anybody  else,  but  I  cannot  be  so 
mad  as  to  let  my  youth  pass  without  trying  to 
establish  myself  in  a  good  position.' ' 

They  were  nearly  all  like  that,  George  Sand 
added ;  and  she  told  another  story,  more 
interesting  than  the  other  because  it  introduces  a 
more  illustrious  name. 

"One  day  they  were  playing  UAutre  at 
the  Ode*on.  I  went  in  there  to  see  Duquesnel, 
and  found  the  whole  theatre  in  commotion. 
They  told  me  that  Sarah  Bernhardt,  the 
artist  who  played  the  part  of  Helen  with  such 
exquisite  grace,  had  tried  to  poison  herself. 
I  went  up  to  see  her.  I  argued  with  her.  I 
spoke  to  her  of  her  son,  and  of  the  love  and 
care  she  owed  to  him.  I  said  all  that  a  woman 
who  is  also  a  mother  can  find  to  say  in  such 
a  case.  Sarah  burst  into  tears  and  sobbed 
aloud.  She  assured  me  that  she  was  horrified 
at  the  life  she  had  so  far  led,  that  no  one  had 
ever  spoken  to  her  as  I  had,  and  that  she 
would  never  forget  my  good  advice. 

"A  few  days  afterwards,  coming  late  to  the 
z  353 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

theatre,  I  passed  on  the  staircase  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt  and  her  sister  Jeanne,  on  their  way  to 
the  Bal  Bullier  in  male  costume.  That  was 
all  that  had  come  of  my  remonstrances  and  my 
lecture." 

And  the  moral  was,  of  course  : — 

"  Beware  of  the  women  of  the  theatre.  They 
are  at  once  more  seductive,  more  perverse,  and 
more  dangerous  than  other  women.  You  must 
always  be  on  your  guard  against  them.  They 
have — I  will  not  say  hours — but  minutes 
of  apparent  sincerity ;  but  their  motives  are 
seldom  disinterested.  There  are  exceptions,  of 
course,  to  all  rules ;  but  the  exceptions  to  this 
rule  are  very  rare." 

Truly  the  George  Sand  who  spoke  like  that 
must  have  been  a  very  different  woman  from 
the  George  Sand  who  found  Marie  Dorval 
" sublime";  for  the  relations  of  Marie  Dorval 
with  Alfred  de  Vigny  had  not,  in  truth,  been 
very  different  from  those  of  Jane  Essler  with 
her  unnamed  literary  lover.  Partly,  it  may  be, 
the  change  in  her  attitude  was  brought  about  by 
her  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  theatre 
in  the  days  when  she  was  herself  an  accepted 
playwright ;  but  it  was  also,  no  doubt,  a  de- 
velopment involved  in  the  art  of  growing  old 
with  dignity.  And  that  dignity  was,  on  the 
whole,  well  sustained.  It  always  appears  in 

354 


Later  Years 

the  pictures   of  her   life   drawn   by   those    who, 
in  her  later  years,  knew  her  best. 

Probably  the  most  trustworthy  of  all  the 
pictures  is  that  drawn  by  M.  Emile  Aucante, 
who,  introduced  to  her  by  Pierre  Leroux,  became 
her  secretary,  and  remained  with  her  in  that 
capacity  for  sixteen  years.  Still  living  at  the 
time  when  the  centenary  of  her  birth  was  being 
celebrated,  he  was  then  interviewed  by  a 
representative  of  the  Gaulois,  to  whom  he 
poured  out  a  rich  store  of  recollections. 

George  Sand,  according  to  him,  was  neither 
bas-bleu  nor  poseuse,  though  she  could  be 
grand  dame  when  she  chose.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  was  shy,  and  talked  little,  preferring 
to  listen  to  the  conversation  of  others,  and  was 
very  reluctant  to  speak  of  her  own  books,  the 
contents  of  which  she  forgot  as  soon  as  she  had 
finished  them.  Her  habits,  too,  were  simple. 
What  jewellery  she  wore  was  mostly  false,  and 
she  made  her  own  caps  and  trimmed  her  own 
hats,  and  was  very  attentive  to  the  needs  of  her 
poorer  neighbours,  not  only  visiting  them  when 
they  were  sick,  but  paying  a  physician  and  a 
chemist  an  annual  salary  to  look  after  them. 
Her  work,  however,  was  her  chief  interest ;  and, 
living  by  line  and  rule,  she  passed  her  days 
as  follows : — 

"  Madame  Sand  used  to  get  up  at  one  in  the 
afternoon  and  come  down  to  the  dining-room 

355 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

just  as  her  family  and  guests  were  finishing  lunch. 
She  never  ate  anything  but  a  boiled  egg,  and 
never  drank  anything  but  a  cup  of  black  coffee 
without  sugar.  Then,  unless  the  weather  was 
very  bad,  she  used  to  go  out  into  the  garden,  and 
stay  working  there — clipping  the  roses,  removing 
the  withered  flowers,  etc. — until  four ;  and  some- 
times she  took  her  guests,  or  let  them  take  her, 
for  excursions  in  the  neighbouring  woods.  She 
loved  the  trees ;  but  these  excursions  always  had 
their  motive.  She  brought  back  from  them 
plants,  flowers,  minerals,  and  fossils  for  her 
collections.  Her  son  Maurice,  who  devoted 
himself  especially  to  entomology,  used  to  look 
for  certain  chrysalides,  from  which  butterflies 
of  the  most  marvellous  beauty  would  presently 
emerge.  .  .  . 

"  At  about  four  Madame  Sand  used  to  return 
to  the  house.  That  was  the  hour  at  which  the 
post  came  in,  and  she  never  left  a  letter 
unanswered.  If  her  complete  correspondence 
were  published,  it  would  fill  as  many  volumes  as 
her  collected  works. 

"The  dinner  bell  rang  at  a  quarter  to  six, 
and  at  six  we  sat  down  to  dinner.  Madame 
Sand  had  an  excellent  appetite,  though  she  ate 
but  moderately.  She  drank  nothing  but  water 
then,  though  she  took  a  little  Spanish  wine  at 
night,  when  she  was  working. 

"After  dinner,  the  party  went  out  into  the 
garden  for  a  chat ;  but  soon  returned  to 

356 


Methods  of  Work 

the  drawing-room,  where,  for  a  short  time,  they 
played  cards  or  dominoes.  Sometimes,  too,  there 
was  a  little  music ;  for  Madame  Sand  was  an 
excellent  musician.  Afterwards  somebody  read 
aloud,  either  from  some  new  book,  or  from  one 
of  Madame  Sand's  favourite  authors :  Walter 
Scott,  or  Cooper,  or  Gabriel  Ferry,  or  Balzac. 
Madame  Sand  used  to  dress  marionettes  while 
she  listened,  for  her  hands  were  never  idle. 

4 'At  midnight  Madame  Sand  withdrew.  She 
went  upstairs  to  her  study  and  worked  until 
five  or  six  in  the  morning.  Then  she  slept 
uninterruptedly  until  midday,  and  that  amount 
of  sleep  sufficed  for  her." 

There  follows  an  interesting  account  of  George 
Sand's  methods  of  work  : — 

"  Madame  Sand  wrote  her  novels  on  ordinary 
notepaper.  I  used  to  prepare  her  a  number  of 
little  copy-books,  consisting  of  twenty  sheets  sewn 
together.  Her  object  was  to  write  exactly  the 
same  number  of  lines  on  each  sheet.  This  was 
necessary  in  order  to  calculate  the  number  of 
letters  contained  in  each  work.  Her  novels  were, 
in  fact,  sold  before  they  were  written,  on  the 
basis  of  so  much  for  so  many  letters ;  and  she 
had  to  adhere  to  the  stipulated  length,  neither 
exceeding  nor  surpassing  it. 

"  As  soon  as  one  novel  was  finished  she 
began  another,  without  pause  or  interruption. 

357 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

Simply  making  a  few  notes  of  the  names  of  the 
principal  personages,  their  respective  characters, 
and  the  scene  in  which  the  story  was  to  be  laid, 
she  then  set  to  work  without  further  delay. 

"  No  outline  of  the  plot  was  ever  written  out. 
Had  she  any  fixed  plan,  even  of  the  vaguest 
description,  in  her  head  ?  All  that  I  can  say  for 
certain  is  that,  except  when  she  was  at  work,  she 
never  seemed  to  be  preoccupied  with  her  subject, 
and  never  talked  about  her  books  while  she  was 
engaged  upon  them. 

"  She,  who  was  often  so  embarrassed  in  her 
speech,  wrote  with  incredible  facility,  and  was 
never  at  a  loss  for  a  word.  As  each  copy-book 
was  finished,  she  handed  it  over  to  me,  and  I 
made  a  copy  of  it,  which  was  sold  in  Belgium  in 
the  days  when  literary  piracy  was  still  allowed 
there.  It  often  happened  that  Madame  Sand 
got  appreciably  ahead  of  me,  and  when  I 
expressed  my  astonishment  at  this,  she  replied, 
*  What !  You  don't  understand  my  going  faster 
than  you  ?  The  explanation  is  very  simple. 
When  you  have  copied  a  sentence,  you  have  to 
read  the  next  one  before  you  can  write  it  out. 
This  stops  you  for  a  moment,  and  these  repeated 
stoppages  necessarily  leave  you  behind  me, 
seeing  that  I  write  straight  ahead  without  ever 
losing  a  second.' 

"  When  a  novel  was  finished,  Madame  Sand 
used  to  gather  her  manuscript  together,  without 
correcting  it,  and  leave  it  at  the  bottom  of  a 

358 


Little  Details 

drawer  for  a  fortnight.  Then  she  took  it  out 
again,  and  read  it  over  as  if  it  were  the  work  of 
another  hand.  She  '  cut '  it  a  little,  and  erased  or 
altered  expressions  that  did  not  please  her ;  but 
she  never  made  any  changes  of  any  importance. 

"  She  was  passionately  fond  of  the  tortoises  that 
lived  in  her  study,  at  the  bottom  of  an  open  box 
which  had  to  be  put  near  the  fire  in  winter  in 
order  that  they  might  not  suffer  from  the  cold. 
One  of  them,  called  La  Mayotte,  had  the  privilege 
of  crawling  about  her  desk  and  looking  at  her 
while  she  worked." 

And  so  forth.  The  details  are  trivial  un- 
doubtedly, but  it  is  of  little  details  that  pictures 
are  composed,  and  it  is  through  little  details  that 
characters  reveal  themselves. 


359 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

Friendship  with  Flaubert  —  The  correspondence  —  Criticism  of 
books  and  criticism  of  life — George  Sand's  optimism  —  Her 
last  illness  and  death. 

WE  have  finished  with  the  anecdotes  and  the 
small  details ;  and  our  last  glimpse  at  George 
Sand's  last  years  may  best  be  taken  through 
her  correspondence  with  Flaubert.  The  letters 
which  she  wrote  to  him  are  the  outstanding 
monument  of  that  period  of  her  life,  and  the 
proof,  convincing  beyond  all  others,  that,  freed 
at  last  from  the  sway  of  the  passions,  she  knew 
how  to  grow  old  with  dignity. 

The  correspondents  first  met,  presumably,  at 
one  of  the  Magny  dinners.  They  began  to 
exchange  letters  regularly  in  1866,  when  George 
Sand  was  sixty-two  and  Flaubert  forty-five  ; 
and  they  continued  to  write  regularly — often 
at  intervals  of  only  a  few  days — until  George 
Sand's  death  at  the  age  of  seventy-two,  Flaubert 
being  then  fifty-five.  The  suggestion  has  never 
been  made  that  they  were  anything  more  than 
friends.  It  is  evident  from  the  nature  of  the 
letters  that  they  were  not.  But  the  friendship 
was  of  the  closest  and  most  intimate  character 

360 


Correspondence  with  Flaubert 

—so  intimate  that  each  of  them,  at  one  time, 
offered  to  lend  the  other  money.  They  opened 
their  hearts  freely  to  each  other,  and  revealed 
their  secrets  in  a  true  spirit  of  camaraderie. 

The  contents  of  the  letters  are  infinitely  various. 
Sometimes  they  take  us  behind  the  scenes,  and 
relate  the  gossip  of  the  literary  coulisses :  we 
find  Flaubert  relating  the  story  of  Sainte-Beuve's 
quarrel  with  Princess  Mathilde,  and  acting  as 
George  Sand's  confidental  intermediary,  charged 
to  explain  that  a  certain  novel  of  hers  was  not 
intended  to  reflect,  as  had  been  alleged,  upon 
the  conduct  of  Empress  Eugenie.  At  other 
times  questions  of  literary  criticism  arise ;  and 
we  see  Flaubert  deploring  the  folly  of  Sainte- 
Beuve,  who  persists  upon  writing  for  the  papers 
instead  of  writing  books,  and  drawing  George 
Sand's  attention  to  the  works  of  those  rising 
young  authors,  Emile  Zola  and  Alphonse  Daudet. 
The  political  references  are  frequent ;  and  we 
note  that  George  Sand  has  lost  the  illusions  of 
her  red-hot  Republican  days  without  losing  her 
hopes  for  the  future  of  her  country,  and  are 
impressed  by  the  sanity  of  her  outlook  on 
public  affairs  at  the  time  when  her  countrymen 
are  parading  Paris  with  the  shout  of  "  a  Berlin ! " 

Very  frequent,  too,  and  very  interesting,  are 
the  letters  in  which  the  two  authors  praise,  and 
judge,  each  other's  books.  Flaubert,  indeed, 
expressed  an  enthusiasm  which  one  would  not 
have  expected  him  to  feel,  and  probably  made 

361 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

mental  reservations.  Such  pleasure  as  he  found 
in  the  novels  of  George  Sand's  later  period  can 
hardly  have  been  what  he  regarded  as  the 
highest  kind  of  pleasure.  He  judged  leniently, 
one  supposes,  out  of  his  respect  for  George 
Sand's  years,  and  because  he  liked  her  and  was 
under  the  spell  of  a  personality  stronger  than 
his  own.  But  she,  on  her  part,  spoke  out,  and 
proved  herself  a  critic  of  no  mean  discrimination. 

Saldmmbo  and  L 'Education  sentimentale — 
those  splendid  failures — were  the  works  about 
which  she  had  most  to  say.  She  recognised 
them  as  works  of  genius,  and  yet  she  under- 
stood the  reasons  why  they  had  failed  to  attract. 
Saldmmbo  had  failed  because  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  interesting  modern  readers  in  ancient 
heroes,  especially  when  presented  in  pages  over- 
loaded with  archaeological  detail.  L! Education 
sentimentale  had  failed  because  it  did  not  appeal 
to  the  young.  It  was  a  book  of  disillusion,  and 
therefore  it  was  necessary  to  be  middle-aged  in 
order  to  perceive  how  true  it  was.  The  young 
were  discouraged  by  the  pessimism.  It  seemed 
to  tell  them  that  life  was  not  worth  while,  whereas 
their  hearts  and  their  instincts  spoke  otherwise. 
That  was  what  came  of  trying  to  write  with  too 
close  fidelity  to  life. 

That  was  her  judgment ;  and  though  it  was 
the  judgment  of  a  writer  whose  very  different 
methods  produced  works  of  a  very  inferior 
calibre,  it  is  on  a  higher  plane  than  the  verdicts 

362 


Opinions  and  Philosophies 

of  Francisque  Sarcey,  and  Rene*  Saint-Taillandier, 
and  Saint- Victor,  and  other  contemporary  critics. 
And  yet,  good  as  the  criticism  is,  the  real  interest 
of  the  letters  depends  not  upon  their  criticism 
of  books,  but  upon  their  criticism  of  life. 
They  are  full  of  that  sort  of  criticism,  and 
most  clearly  bring  out  the  personalities  as 
well  as  the  points  of  view  of  the  two  writers  who 
exchange  opinions  and  philosophies. 

Sometimes  the  discussion  turns  on  rather  curious 
subjects.  Throughout  a  considerable  series 
of  letters  the  question  at  issue  is :  Ought  a 
certain  young  man — his  name  is  given — who  is 
engaged,  but  cannot  be  married  for  three  or  four 
years  to  come,  to  resist  temptation  and  remain 
chaste  until  his  wedding  day?  Flaubert,  with 
characteristic  cynicism,  denounces  the  policy  as 
"absurd";  George  Sand  finds  reasons  for  re- 
commending it.  It  seems  a  strange  topic  for 
argument  between  an  elderly  lady  and  a  middle- 
aged  man ;  but  their  opposing  solutions  of  the 
problem  show  how  age,  which  was  souring  the 
one,  had  only  mellowed  the  other.  And  such 
digressions  at  any  rate  are  rare.  As  a  rule,  it  is 
round  the  circumstances  of  the  writers'  own  lives 
that  the  rival  philosophies  do  battle.  Their 
temperaments  clash  strangely,  and  their  roles 
seem  to  be  inverted.  It  is  the  man's  voice  that 
is  shrill ;  the  woman's  that  is  confident  and  strong. 
George  Sand  speaks  almost  as  the  Great 
Physician,  bidding  the  sick  arise  and  walk. 

363 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

In  their  origin  Flaubert's  ailments  were 
physical ;  he  was  epileptic.  His  liability 
to  sudden  seizures  had  led  him  to  adopt 
a  solitary  mode  of  life ;  and  the  solitude, 
combined  with  his  preoccupation  with  purely 
literary  interests,  had  reacted  on  his  mind. 
He  had  his  friends  of  both  sexes ;  but  he  saw 
little  of  them,  and,  so  far  as  the  mass  of  mankind 
were  concerned,  he  was  at  once  a  misanthropist 
and  a  misogynist.  The  average  man  was  for 
him  a  "  bourgeois,"  and  he  hated  the  bourgeois 
as  the  Anti-Semites  hate  the  Jews.  The  main 
purpose  of  most  of  his  books  was  to  ridicule 
and  irritate  the  bourgeois ;  and  he  discovered 
the  profound  truth  that  no  weapon  is  so 
formidable  against  them  as  a  minute  description 
of  their  habits — that  the  wounds  thus  inflicted 
hurt  the  more  because  there  is  no  means  of 
parrying  the  thrusts. 

It  was  an  ingenious  game,  and  he  played  it 
with  unrivalled  skill ;  but  he  got  little  satisfaction 
from  his  prowess.  He  might  chuckle  over  it ; 
but  he  hated  too  bitterly  for  the  whole-hearted 
laughter  that  would  have  saved  him.  As  a 
consequence  the  bourgeois  were  able  to  avenge 
themselves  sufficiently  by  continuing  to  behave 
as  before.  Their  doing  so  caused  him  some- 
thing very  like  physical  pain.  Not  his  books 
only  but  his  conversation  consisted  of  increasingly 
desperate  tirades  against  them ;  and  it  became 
a  fixed  idea  with  him  that  life  was  intolerable 

364 


Good  Advice 

because  of  the  density  and  folly  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  He  dwelt  alone  in  a  suburb  of  Rouen 
with  this  fixed  idea,  and  with  a  deaf  and  bed- 
ridden mother.  The  idea  became  an  obsession  ; 
and  he  suffered,  if  ever  any  man  did,  from 
the  malady  which  has  been  called  "  impuissance 
de  vivre" 

While  he  was  in  this  state  George  Sand  came 
to  him  as  a  missionary  with  stimulating  exhorta- 
tions and  abundant  good  advice.  Not  all  her 
advice,  it  is  true,  would  be  endorsed  by  preachers 
of  more  orthodox  persuasions.  The  moralists 
would  approve  her  suggestion  that  he  should 
get  married,  but  not  her  alternative  proposal 
that  he  should  "  have  mistresses."  But  we 
must  remember  that  the  ordinary  moralist  would 
have  made  no  impression  on  Flaubert,  who 
would  merely  have  called  him  a  bourgeois,  and 
have  considered  the  discussion  closed.  It  was 
precisely  because  she  spoke  as  one  having 
authority  and  not  as  the  bourgeois  that  George 
Sand  gained  a  hearing.  Flaubert  did  not, 
indeed,  follow  her  counsel  in  this  particular,  nor 
did  he,  in  any  particular,  follow  it  very  closely. 
But  at  least  he  listened  to  her,  and  she  did  him 
good. 

Remaining  an  idealist  and  an  optimist,  she 
devoted  all  her  spare  energy  to  taking  him  out 
of  himself,  and  trying  to  induce  him  to  look  upon 
life  with  more  cheerful  eyes.  She  invited  him 
to  Nohant  far  more  often  than  she  could  persuade 

365 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

him  to  come,  promising  that  her  children — and 
her  marionettes — should  make  him  laugh  whether 
he  would  or  not.  She  implored  him  not  to 
concern  himself  so  much  about  human  folly, 
seeing  that  the  foolish  would  continue  to  be 
foolish  in  spite  of  all  his  furious  denunciations  ; 
and  she  delivered  formal  little  lectures  such  as 
this  : — 

"  You  mustn't  be  ill,  and  you  mustn't  be  always 
grumbling,  my  dear  old  troubadour.  You  must 
cough  it  off  your  chest,  and  blow  your  nose,  and 
get  well,  and  announce  that  France  is  mad,  and 
that  humanity  is  idiotic,  and  that  we  are  all 
animals  badly  turned  out ;  but,  at  the  same  time, 
you  must  love  yourself,  and  your  fellow-creatures, 
and,  above  all,  you  must  love  your  friends.  I 
too  have  my  melancholy  hours.  But  then  I  look 
at  my  '  flowers ' — those  two  little  ones  who  are 
always  smiling  —  and  their  charming  mother, 
and  my  son  that  sagacious  naturalist,  whom  the 
end  of  the  world  would  still  find  hunting  for 
specimens,  and  cataloguing  them,  doing  his 
day's  work  as  each  day  comes,  and  yet  gay  as 
Punch  himself  at  the  rare  hours  at  which  he 
allows  himself  to  rest." 

Or  such  as  this  : — - 

"  The  little  girls  are  running  about  like  rabbits 
in  the  midst  of  bushes  as  tall  as  themselves.  How 
good  life  is  when  the  objects  of  one's  love  are 

366 


The  Secret  of  Happiness 

alive  and  active  !  You  are  the  one  black  point 
in  the  life  of  my  heart,  because  you  are  melancholy 
and  will  not  look  up  at  the  sun.  As  for  the 
people  who  are  indifferent  to  me,  I  am  equally 
indifferent  to  their  acts  of  malice  or  folly 
towards  me  or  towards  each  other.  These 
things  will  pass  as  the  rain  passes.  The  thing 
that  abides  is  a  good  heart's  feeling  for  the 
beautiful.  You  have  both  the  good  heart  and 
the  feeling.  Then — good  gracious! — you  have 
no  right  to  be  anything  but  happy.  Perhaps 
your  life  has  missed  that  intrusion  of  the  feminine 
sentiment  at  which  you  have  turned  up  your  nose. 
I  know  that  women  are  not  worth  much ;  but 
perhaps,  in  order  to  be  happy,  it  is  necessary  to 
have  been  unhappy  in  the  past." 

That  is  the  note  on  which  one  likes  to  end. 
The  cynic  might  suggest  that  George  Sand 
had  won  her  way  to  ultimate  happiness  quite 
as  much  through  the  unhappiness  which  she 
had  inflicted  on  others  as  through  that  which 
she  had  herself  endured.  Liszt  and  Chopin  and 
Musset  would  have  said  so  ;  so  too,  perhaps,  would 
Sandeau  and  Mallefille,  who  spent  so  much  of 
their  old  age  in  discussing  the  woman  whom 
they  both  had  loved.  But  the  rights  and 
wrongs  in  most  of  the  cases  were  tangled  ;  and 
if  George  Sand  had  been  fickle,  at  least  she 
had  never  been  "  interested ";  and  she  too  had 
suffered  at  her  hours,  in  spite  of  her  complacent 

367 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

conviction  that  whatever  she  did  was  right ;  and 
from  suffering  she  had  gathered  strength. 

She  had  gathered  strength,  and  she  had 
developed.  The  crude  philosophies  of  youth 
had  left  her  together  with  its  passions.  There 
had  been  a  time,  indeed,  when  there  was  little 
but  her  intellect  to  distinguish  her  from  the 
grisettes ;  but  her  intellect  had  triumphed, 
and  no  disappointment  had  soured  her.  She 
no  longer  railed  at  life  because  it  did  not  yield 
her  impossible  bliss,  but  accepted  life  as  it  was, 
and  found  that  it  was  very  good.  She  had  once 
been  very  mad,  but  she  now  was  very  sane.  She 
had  lived  down  scandals  as  well  as  troubles  ;  and 
the  temper  of  her  old  age  was  serene,  reminding 
us,  as  one  would  like  the  closing  years  of  every 
life  to  do,  of  that  Land  of  Beulah  "  where  the  sun 
shineth  night  and  day,"  and  where  the  pilgrims 
foregathered  and  waited  for  the  messenger  to 
come  with  his  token — "an  arrow  with  a  point 
sharpened  with  love,"  and  summon  them  to  cross 
the  River. 

Almost  to  the  last  George  Sand  enjoyed  good 
health.  In  one  of  the  last  letters — perhaps  it 
was  the  last  letter — that  she  wrote,  she  told  her 
physician,  Dr.  Favre  of  Paris,  that  she  felt  well, 
though  she  was  not  without  anxiety. 

"The  general  state  of  my  health  has  not 
deteriorated,  and  in  spite  of  my  age — I  shall 

368 


Illness 

soon  be  seventy-two — I  feel  no  symptoms  of 
senility.  My  legs  are  vigorous ;  my  sight  is 
better  than  it  has  been  for  the  last  twenty  years  ; 
my  sleep  is  untroubled ;  my  hands  are  as  firm 
and  as  skilful  as  when  I  was  young.  .  .  .  Only, 
a  portion  of  the  functions  of  life  being  now  almost 
completely  suppressed,  I  wonder  where  I  am 
going,  and  whether  I  must  not  expect  to  take  my 
departure  suddenly  one  of  these  fine  mornings." 

The  end,  however,  was  not  to  come  quite  so 
suddenly  as  she  expected.  Ever  since  her  serious 
illness  from  typhoid  fever,  she  had  suffered  from 
gastric  troubles ;  and  now  they  were  not  only 
recurring,  but  increasing  in  severity.  She  com- 
plained, in  a  letter  to  Flaubert,  of  "  cruel  cramps 
in  the  stomach,"  of  " atrocious  persistence";  but 
she  made  as  light  of  them  as  she  could. 

"  Physical  suffering  is  a  good  lesson  when  it 
leaves  your  mind  free  to  profit  by  it.  One  learns 
to  endure  it  and  to  conquer  it.  Of  course  one  has 
some  moments  of  discouragement  in  which  one 
throws  oneself  upon  one's  bed.  But,  for  my 
part,  I  always  think  of  what  my  old  cure"  used 
to  say  when  he  had  the  gout :  Either  it  will 
pass  away>  or  else  I  shall  bass  away.  And  then 
he  used  to  laugh,  pleased  with  his  little  joke." 

She  rallied  after  that,  as  the  letter  to  Dr.  Favre, 
which  was  written  two  months  later,  shows ;  but 
not  for  long.     What  is  described  as  paralysis  of 
2  A  369 


George  Sand  and  Her  Lovers 

the  intestines  developed  into  something  of  the 
nature  of  peritonitis — very  possibly  appendicitis. 
On  May  30,  1876,  George  Sand  took  to  the  bed 
which  she  was  never  again  to  leave.  Maurice 
Sand  telegraphed  to  her  daughter  and  her  most 
intimate  friends.  Solange  came,  and  so  did 
M.  Plauchut,  and  M.  Amic,  who  could  not  even 
sufficiently  command  his  feelings  to  be  taken  to 
her  bedside.  Dr.  Pe"an  operated,  and  for  a 
moment  there  was  hope ;  but  the  hope  quickly 
faded.  George  Sand  sank  slowly,  and  died  on 
the  8th  of  June. 

The  village  priest  had  called,  offering  his 
ministrations,  but  had  been  sent  away  again. 
She  had  not  asked  for  him,  he  was  told ;  they 
must  not  take  the  risk  of  troubling  instead  of 
soothing  the  last  moments  of  a  dying  woman. 
So  the  good  man  retired,  and  was  seen  praying 
underneath  her  bedroom  window.  "  1  heard  her 
cries  of  pain,"  he  said,  "and  I  prayed  God  to 
extend  His  infinite  pity  to  her,  and  then  I  pro- 
nounced the  benediction.  If  my  benediction  was 
not  rejected,  it  will  have  reached  her." 

That  was  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  At 
ten,  Dr.  Favre,  who  had  been  summoned  from 
Paris  and  was  with  her,  came  down  to  the 
party  gathered  in  the  salon,  and  told  them  that 
all  was  over. 

The  funeral  took  place  in  the  graveyard  of 
the  humble  Nohant  church ;  and  all  literary 

370 


Death  and  Burial 

France  was  represented.  Among  others  there 
attended  Prince  Napoleon,  Gustave  Flaubert, 
Ernest  Renan,  Edouard  Cadol,  Paul  Meurice, 
Charles  Edmond,  Armand  Silvestre,  Eugene 
Lambert,  Emile  Aucante,  and  Dumas  fils. 
Victor  Hugo  had  sent  from  Paris  one  of  his 
most  magniloquent  discourses,  which  he  begged 
Paul  Meurice  to  read  for  him, — "  I  weep  for 
one  who  is  dead,  and  I  salute  one  who  is 
immortal," — but  Dumas  paid  a  homage  which 
touches  the  heart  far  more.  He  had  sat  up 
all  night  composing  the  funeral  oration  which 
he  had  promised  to  deliver ;  and  when  the  time 
came  he  broke  down  and  sobbed  so  that  he  could 
not  speak  it. 


37' 


INDEX 


Adam,  Madame  Juliette,  337, 
338. 

Agoult,  Comtesse  d',  166,  167, 
187,  191,  197,  205,  206,  208- 
210,  212,  214,  216,  217,  219, 

220,   227,   228,   234,   236,   238, 

269, 312, 338. 

Allart,  Madame,  136. 
Amic,  44,  351,  352,  370. 
Arago,    Emmanuel,    212,    351, 

352. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  322,  347. 
Aucante,  Emile,  347,  35  5>  37 1- 

Ballanche,  216. 
Balzac,  227,  231,  346. 
Beranger,  36. 
Berlioz,  140,  243. 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  353,  354. 
Boucoiran,  Jules,  28,  30,  32,  33, 
35,  65,  86,  106,  109,  123,  124, 

128,  129,  130,  134,  144,  145- 
147,  182,  194. 

Bouillon,  Due  de,  3. 

Buloz,  41,  62,  65,  76,  102,   104, 

129,  146,  221,  237,  255,  272, 
319,  329,  331,  332,  340,  34i, 
343- 

Cadol,  Edouard,  371. 
Calmatta,  Lina,  334. 
Caro,  336,  337,  349. 
Cazamajou,   Madame,  see  also 

Caroline  Delaborde,  177. 
Chateaubriand,  15,  16,  17. 
Chatiron,  Hippolyte,  7,  12,  18, 

24,  27,  43,  163,  165,  266,  268, 

335- 

Chopin,  Frederic,  219,  237-247, 
250-254,  256,  258-276,  281- 


283,   288,   290-293,  295,  296, 
300,  302-308,  312,   322,  324, 

339,  367. 

Claretie,  M.  Jules,  51. 
Clesinger,    285,    288-291,    296, 

324-328. 

Cle'singer,  Jeanne,  326. 
Cle'singer,  Madame,  see  also 

Solange  Sand,  291. 
Colet,  Louise,  343. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  361. 
Dejazet,  Madame,  101. 
Delaborde,  Caroline,  6,  n. 

See  also  Madame  Cazamajou. 
Delaborde,  Lucie,  8,  u. 
Delaborde,     Sophie,    see    also 

Madame   Maurice  Dupin,  6, 

8,9,  17,21. 

Delacroix,  135, 140,  243,  269,333. 
Deschatres,  8,  14. 
Didier,  Charles,  216. 
Dorval,  Marie,  49,  52,  53,   156, 

234,  312,  354- 
Dudevant,  Casimir,  21,  22,  24, 

43, 164-166,  i68,*i7o-i72, 176- 

179,  191,  205,  213,  222,  266, 

297,  340. 
Dudevant,    Madame,    see   also 

Aurore    Dupin   and    George 

Sand,  28,  30,  31,  33,  34,  36, 

37,  38,  41,  170-172,  233. 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  62,  227,  332, 

346. 
Dumas  fils,  261,  262,  337,  338, 

346,  347,  349,  37i. 
Dupin,        Amandine  -  Aurore  - 
Lucie,  see  also  George  Sand, 
i,  8,  11,  12,  14,  15,  17,20,  21, 

22,  24,  25. 


373 


Index 


Dupin,  Madame,  7,9,  10, 12,  17, 

19. 

Dupin,  Maurice,  6,  7,  8,  n. 
Dupin,    Madame   Maurice,   see 

also  Sophie  Delaborde,  9,  n, 

20,  221. 

Dupin  de  Francueil,  M.,  4,  6. 
Duplessis,  21. 
Duteil,  Agasta,  167. 
Duvernet,  32,  39. 

Edmond,  Charles,  371. 
Epinay,  M.  d',  4. 
Epinay,  Madame  d;,  4. 
Eugenie,  Empress,  361. 

Favre,  Dr.,  368-370. 

Flaubert,    336,    337,  338,    347, 

350,  360,  36i,  363-365,  371- 
Fleury,  32. 
Foucher,  Paul,  60. 
Fouquier,  Henri,  331. 
Frederick  Augustus  n.,  i. 

Gautier,    Theophile,    346,   347, 

348,  349,  35i. 

Girardin,  Madame  de,  338. 
Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  322,  337, 

338,  347- 
Goncourt,  Jules  de,   337,   339, 

347- 

Grimm,  4. 
Gryzmala,  333. 
Gueroult,  168,  206. 

Hanska,  Madame  de,  231. 
Heine,  136,  207,  216,  243. 
Herve,  331. 
Horn,  Comte  de,  5. 
Houghton,  Lord,  57. 
Hugo,  Victor,  57,  60,  278,  279, 
312,  319,  332,  346,  371. 

Jouffroy,  1 60. 

Kalkbrenner,  241,  242. 
Keratry,  M.  de,  34. 
Konigsmark,  Aurora  von,  i. 

La  Harpe,  4. 


Lambert,  Eugene,  347,  371. 
Lamennais,  196-198,  205,    209, 

212,  215,  220,  234,  319,  320. 
Latouche,  34,  35,  36. 
Leroux,    Pierre,   215,   229,   230, 

235-238,  287,  319,  320,  355. 
Liszt,   136,   139,    143,   148,    187, 

196,   206-212,    214-216,   218, 

220,    234,    240,    243,    247,    269, 
275,285,306,312,367. 

Mallefille,  219,  225-229,  234, 
237,  238,  266,  335,  367. 

Manceau,  323,  327,  347,  348. 

Marliani,  Madame,  215,  236, 
294,  297. 

Marmontel,  3. 

Mathilde,  Princesse,  156,  361. 

Mendelssohn,  243. 

Merimee,  Prosper,  54,  55-56, 
57,  61,  67,  92,  96,  181,  319, 
330,  335,  346. 

Meunce,  Paul,  371. 

Meyerbeer,  140,  243,  333. 

Michel  de  Bourges,  162,  163, 
169,  173,  174,  176,  180-194, 
196,  198,  205,  212,  213,  216, 
220,  222-226,  228,  235,  238, 
319,  320. 

Michel,  Madame,  191. 

Mickiewics,  216,  243. 

Moscheles,  242. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  57-64,  66, 
67,  69,  70,  73-76,  82,  84-86, 
88-90,  93-103,  106-113,  115, 
124-128,  130,  132-137,  139- 
142,  145-1 50,  152-154,  156- 
158,  164,  181,  182,  192,  203, 
207,  211,  232,  234,  247,  258, 
269,  272,  319,  339,  340-343, 
367- 

Musset,  Madame  de,  70,  102. 

Musset,  Paul  de,  63,  64,  65,  69, 
70,  71,  74,  75,  86,  98,  102, 
150,  151,  343. 

Musset,    Madame    Lardin    de, 

64,  98,  133- 

Musset,  Marquis  de,  58. 
Musset-Pathay,  M.  de,  58. 


374 


Index 


Napoleon,  Prince,  371. 

Nohant,  6,  7,  12,  25,  29,  127, 
134,  141,  158,  165,  206,  230, 
231.  259,  290,  291,  327,  329, 
33i,  334,  336,  347,  348,  349, 
365,  370. 

Nouritt,  Adolphe,  216,  243. 

Pagello,  Dr.,  77,  80,  81,  82, 
85-89,  92-96,  98,  99,  101,  102, 
105,  107,  108,  in-122,  124, 
125-132,  159,  164,  181,  228, 

255,  335- 

Papet,  65,  133,  150,  221. 
Pelletan,  Eugene,  218,  220,  225. 
Pictet,  Major,  213,  248. 
Planche,  Gustave,  57,  65,  66,  67, 

69,  133- 
Potocka,  Countess  Delphine,  304. 

Radziwill,  Prince  Valentin,  241. 
Re'camier,  Madame,  34,  216. 
Regnault,  Emile,  44,  45,  47. 
Renan,  Ernest,  371. 
Rinteau,  Genevieve,  2. 
Rinteau,  Marie,  2. 
Rollinat,  133,  146. 
Ronchaud,  Louis  de,  216. 
Rothschild,    Baron    James  de, 

242. 

Rousseau,  4,  6,  17. 
Rozieres,  Mademoiselle  de,  266, 

269,  270,  303. 

Sainte-Beuve,  54,  55,  60,  61, 
67,  69,  101,  135,  136,  138,  141, 
151,  153,  160,  162,  194,  215, 


Saint-Simon,  37. 

Saint-Simonians,  41,  184,  199, 
202-206,  211. 

Sand,  George,  I,  et  passim. 

Sand,  Maurice,  27,  28,  35,  43, 
70,  73,  165,  166,  177,  178,  189, 
190,  205,  214,  218,  225,  250, 
255,  257,  266,  267,  269,  277, 
296,  298,  299,  305,  349,  350, 
356,  370. 


Sand,  Solange,  27,  35, 42,  53,  70, 
165,  177,  178,  205,  214,  222, 
233,  250,  255,  267,  268,  274, 
276,  277,  285-291,  294-297, 

299,  304,  324-331,  370. 
Sandeau,  Jules,  32,  36,   38,  43, 

44,  46,  48,  49,  51,  52,  53,  55, 

57,75,  1 06,  159,  181,227,232, 

3i9,  337,  346,  367- 
Sarcey,  Francisque,  363. 
Saxe,  Aurore  de,  5. 
Saxe,  Maurice  de,  I,  2,  3,  7. 
Schoelcher,  Victor,  216. 
Schumann,  243. 
Seze,  Aurelien   de,   24,   25,  52, 

170,  176,  323. 
Silvestre,  Armand,  371. 
Slowacki,  243,  244. 
Stael,  Madame  de,  338. 
Stendhal,  72. 
Sterling,  Miss,  301,  304. 
"Stern,     Daniel,"      see       also 

Comtesse  d'Agoult,  217. 
Sue,  Eugene,  216,  332. 

Tattet,  Alfred,    100,   101,    102, 

130,  133,  134,  142,  143,  343- 
Thiers,  351,  352. 
Thiot-Varennes,     Maitre,     170 

171,  172,  176. 
Turgueneff,  346,  350. 

Ulbach,  Louis  d',  336. 

Verrieres,     Genevieve    de,    see 

also  Rinteau,  4. 
Verrieres,    Marie  de,    see    also 

Rinteau,  3,  5. 

Viardot,  Madame,  269,  278. 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  53,  156,  312, 

354- 
Villeneuve,  Rene  de,  19,  20. 

Weiss,  J.  J.,  331. 
Wieck,  Clara,  243. 
Wodzinska,  Marie,  238,  243-246, 
250. 


Zola,  Emile,  361. 


375 


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